Secure the Engine to Your Business Future

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People use mobile devices, as James Hailey Jr. blogged, “for almost everything they do in their day to day activities like listening to music, work, social applications, and calendar functions.  They allow people to immediately get information and access different resources.  In today’s world, there are more mobile devices than there have ever been in recent years and companies are just realizing the potential opportunities that exist.”

As Daniel Newman blogged, “cloud, mobile devices, Big Data, and social media have become a permanent fixture of today’s business.  From solopreneurs to global enterprises, companies are more connected than ever before to their customers, employees, shareholders, and stakeholders.  Enabled by connectivity and powered by the cloud, this is more than just Marketechture, this is the engine of our business future.”

“By embracing social tools in the cloud,” Rebecca Buisan blogged, “organizations can now attract new customers while at the same time better serve their existing clients, employees, and business partners.”

While cloud and mobile are enabling social business, it is not all blue skies and rainbows.  The age of the mobile device is still young, so as you embrace, with youthful exuberance, the convenience of the mobile-app-portal-to-the-cloud computing model, convenience should not trump security.

As Marissa Tejada blogged, despite your employees’ hands being full of business-enabling mobile devices, too few organizations are making sure mobility and security go hand in hand.  Especially when BYOD puts personal devices into business hands.

One example Allan Pratt blogged about is iOS7’s AirDrop feature, which uses a combination of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi ad-hoc networks.  “The bottom line,” Pratt explained, “is that while AirDrop may sound like a good idea in theory, it needs more security embedded into it for data transfers to be considered.  For SMBs, this means you should be wary of new technology until it has been proven safe and effective for the enterprise.  You don’t want your data walking out the door without your knowledge.”

With big data providing the 1.21 gigawatts (often with a lot more than 1.21 gigabytes) of power, social, cloud, and mobile technology is the flux capacitor driving companies of all sizes forward to the future of business.  Just as lightning never strikes twice, you don’t want to end up looking back in time, second-guessing why you didn’t secure the engine to your business future.

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