brownlee thomas, ph.d. principal analyst
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ForrTel: Supporting Mobile And Remote Workers — Common And Best PracticesBrownlee Thomas, Ph.D.
Principal Analyst
Forrester Research
June 11, 2004. Call in at 10:55 a.m. Eastern Time
Agenda
• The growing appeal of telecommuting — for workers and employers
• Challenges for IT in supporting remote workers
• Challenges for IT in supporting mostly mobile workers
• Common and best practices
Agenda
• The growing appeal of telecommuting
• Challenges for IT to support regular mobile and remote workers
• Challenges for IT in supporting mostly mobile workers
• Common and best IT and corporate practices in supporting remote and mobile workers
Telecom enables and empowers the remote worker
• Telecommuting is increasingly attractive — why?
» Changing demographics
– Aging population
– Growing number dual-earner families and desire for work/life balance
– Knowledge-worker labor shortage
– Increasingly geographically dispersed organizations
• Many — but not all — workers and jobs are well-suited
Telecommuting trends
• More than 80 million workers worldwide in 2003, of which > 50% are salaried workers
• ITAC 2004: 23.5 million teleworkers with employers in the US in 2003, another 23.4 million self-employed teleworkers
» Home-based teleworking by US employees has grown 40% since 2001
• Vast majority of companies have some or many remote or mobile workers
• > 80% of employees work outside corporate HQ (sales offices, regional facilities, retail outlets, home offices)
IT — balancing opportunities and challenges
Badidea
Letthem
Gotit !
RESISTANCE INERTIA CHAMPION
28% to 32% (2001)<10% (2004)
18% to 22% (2001)30% to 35% (2004)
Agenda
• The growing appeal of telecommuting — for workers and employers
• Challenges for IT in supporting remote workers
• Challenges for IT in supporting mostly mobile workers
• Common and best practices
Approaches vary for supporting different types of telework
Three main categories:
1. Regular mobile and remote workers
2. Day extenders and casual/occasional telecommuters
3. Always-mobile employees
Enabling telecom technologies for remote workers
• The Internet
» Web-based applications
» Remote-access virtual private networks (IPSec Internet VPN)
• High-speed access
» ISDN from telcos @ 128 Kbps
» xDSL from telcos @ 400 to 600 Kbps
» Cable modem from cablecos @ 1 to 3 Mbps
» Fixed wireless and Wi-Fi @ 1 to 10 Mbps (shared)
Telecommuting program implementation
1. Manageability — connectivity and software procurement, deployment, upgrades, monitoring, planning, M-A-C
2. Ease of use
3. Privacy, collaborative tools
4. Control and predict costs (multi-technology access, usage, roaming, chargeback)
Changing user wants, evolving user needs IT challenge to ensure:
Top IT issues in supporting remote workers
• Security:
» The enterprise network, corporate information
• Support:
» Remote software and systems upgrades
» Technology and new service migration
» Remote/online training
» Help desk (especially off-hours)
• Monitoring compliance with IT security policies, including appropriate use
GigaWorld IT Forum 2004 and GigaWorld IT Forum Europe 2004: session poll results
IT challenge: supporting remote workers
Corporate officeHome
office(Cable
modem, DSL, dialup)
Personalfirewall
ISP POP
UnencryptedInternet access
VPN clienton PC
(company PC)
VPN Tunnel
Application servers
Central siteVPN gateway
Agenda
• The growing appeal of telecommuting — for workers and employers
• Challenges for IT in supporting remote workers
• Challenges for IT in supporting mostly mobile workers
• Common and best practices
Enterprise mobility implications
• Mobility will grow in importance
» “M-business” will be critical to business success by 2006
• Important benefits:
» Improved productivity, better customer service by enabling:
– Immediate access to email/voicemail
– Ability to quickly access customer/user data
– Ability to process orders, check status for troubleshooting
– Reduced delays for dispatch and delivery
Enabling technologies for mobile workers
• Laptops» 802.11 cards for hotspot access and WLANs
» 2.5/3G mobile modems for laptop PCs
• Handhelds» Pagers (two-way)
» Blackberry email devices (2G Mobitex @ 9.6 Kbps and 2.5/3G GSM-GPRS, 1xrtt)
» Cell phone SMS and email (dialup @ 14 to 18 Kbps)
» GSM-GPRS devices @ 40+ Kbps
» CDMA 1xrtt devices @ 80+ Kbps
» Smartphones, PDAs
Laptops and PDA usage go mainstream
Laptop/handheld use
2002:2002: 92% wired, 75% wireless; RAS PDAs 76%)2004:2004: 94% wired, 100% wireless; RAS PDAs 94%+)
• Main obstacles to wider deployment within the enterprise» Waiting for coverage, performance improvements» Cost of devices» Security concerns» Instability of device market
Source: Research forecast (2002 – Base: 50 North American companies with more than 20% mobile workforce)
Commonly used mobile applications
Remote access to email
Employee organizer functions
CRM (history, status)
Sales force enablement
Logistics apps (dispatch, scheduling)
Wireless PBX
Supply chain management (orders, inventory)
Information services (white pages, weather)
Wireless office (no fixed lines)
eCommerce transactions
1 2 3 4 5Source: Orange, user survey July 2003 (Base: 113)
3.9
3.3
3.2
2.8
2.7
2.6
2.5
2.4
2.3
2.31 = Not very important5 = Very important/critical
IT priorities and challenges in managing mobility
• Security — VPN access
• Support — end-user productivity and convenience benefits/satisfaction
» Email, personal information management (PIM)
• One-stop shopping (voice, data, Wi-Fi services, including secure VPN)
• Usage control and reporting
• Cost savings
GigaWorld 2004 session poll results
IT issues: network and information security
VPN gateway
Central corporate site
VPN gateway
Internet Web site
Remote VPN user
Internet VPN
Wi-Fi, hotelEthernet, 2-2.5-3G
Security must be broad and deep
• Authentication
• Authorization
• Administration
• Audit
Who are you?
What may you do?
Who may do what?
What happened?
Intranet servers
VPN gateway
Remote VPN user
VPN gateway
Internet
IT issues: appropriate use and privacy
PublicWeb sites
Firewall/contentfilter
Split tunnel disabled
Router
Proliferation of different access technologies to support
Ban
dw
idth
Type of access service
High
Low
Mobile Fixed
UMTS
1xRTT
GSM TDMA CDMA
OC-12+
SATELLITE
PCS
WLL
OC-3
T-3/E-3
T-1/E-1
xDSL
ISDN
POTS
CABLE
GPRSGPRS
3xRTT3xRTT
WI-Fi
WI-Fi
IT issues: support for multi-access users
VPN clienton PC Low-end
VPN gateway
Central siteVPN gateway
VPN IPSec clienton laptop
or SSL clientless
Branch-officeVPN gateway
Corporateoffice
Remotesite
Day extender
Small or homeoffice
Mobile user
InternetVPN
Agenda
• The growing appeal of telecommuting — for workers and employers
• Challenges for IT in supporting remote workers
• Challenges for IT in supporting mostly mobile workers
• Common and best practices
Summary
• New telecom technologies/services are changing the way we think about our work environment
• They offer IT and other workers the promise of greater freedom of movement and flexibility
» Earliest returns on investment = support function jobs like help desk, customer service
» Reduces stress and turnover, including in IT (convenience, flexibility for some off-hours job functions like help desk and remote monitoring)
Common IT practices in managing mobile and remote workers
• Try to reduce number of contracts and suppliers of remote-access services
• Growing appeal of managed remote access and managed security
• Minimum support for personal devices (synchronization)
• Employee subsidies for fixed broadband home access — dial-up equivalent
• Employee subsidies for mobile services — unlikely to come close to meeting actual costs
• Force users onto the VPN versus Web-enabling applications
• Lack of written telecommuting policy; infrequent revisits
Best practices for resolving mobile and remote user issues
• Technology:
» Centralized management by IT
» Appropriate remote-access VPN platforms (internal or provider-managed)
» Content filtering
» User training (eLearning/onsite once or twice a year)
• Usage policies:
» Network/physical security, support responsibilities, appropriate use/privacy
» Written, reviewed, revised, and regularly communicated
» Formal telework/mobile work agreement
Brownlee Thomas
www.forrester.com
Thank you
Entire contents © 2004 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.