Workplace Mobility – How to Overcome Challenges and Increase Productivity for IT and Users

Employees have come to rely on the convenience and freedom of mobile devices, which have pushed productivity levels to new heights. However, with mobility comes risk — and managing this risk is a day-to-day challenge for all IT departments.

At Entrust Datacard, we’ve made it our goal to demonstrate how choosing a smarter authentication approach can help you face this challenge head-on while giving you back some much-deserved “you time.”

Our customers have told us time and time again that mobility is a must have — and a major concern. Whether your employees are on the road, working from home or out in the field, it’s crucial to provide them a secure and mobile solution.

So what are some typical challenges you may face when looking for an authentication solution that supports mobility for your workers?

  1. Meeting compliance for high assurance needs, especially when smart cards don’t work with digital devices.How do you protect the enterprise in a digital world full of security challenges? An alternative token such as the derived personal identity verification (PIV) takes the usability of authentication to a new level. In regulated environments especially, where PIV authentication is mandated, organizations are forced to find a solution that utilizes a virtual smart card and delivers a seamless experience. Now, a virtual smart card embedded in a device can deliver seamless, secure, mobile access that’s invisible to the user, and indispensable for the IT pro.
  2. Integrating with a wide range of legacy and cloud-based applications.A mobile identity solution that doesn’t integrate with your organization’s essential apps, or that only accommodates legacy or cloud-based applications, can create costly problems.
    Asking your users to switch to a compatible app just adds end-user friction, and asking your IT staff to develop custom integrations for unsupported apps is neither efficient nor cost-effective.The mobile-empowered enterprise must identify an established mobile identity solution that comes with built-in integrations. It should accommodate the majority of your organization’s essential applications — both legacy and cloud-based — without requiring extensive custom development. Moreover, it’s important to choose a reputable solution provider with established connections to leading providers of applications for critical enterprise functions such as single sign-on, VPN, SaaS access via SAML, mobile device management (MDM) and enterprise mobility management (EMM) platforms.Because new enterprise productivity apps are emerging every day, look beyond existing integrations for a solution. A trusted solutions provider should demonstrate a commitment to future-proof agility — continually expanding its integrations to accommodate new applications, new use cases and new technologies.

    Finally, an enterprise-grade solution should accommodate the proprietary applications that many enterprises custom-develop to fit their needs. This means offering robust and easy-to-use software development kits (SDKs) that enable streamlined integration of the mobile identity solution with a custom-developed legacy, mobile or web app.

  3. Finding authentication that adapts to your users and use cases.Your organization has a range of user communities, each with its own use cases and needs. Not all users and use cases pose the same risk, however, and a one-size-fits-all approach to secure authentication either leaves security lacking or creates unnecessary friction.The enterprise must have the ability to step up security where it’s needed most while minimizing friction where it’s not. Advanced adaptive authentication eliminates the need for repetitive and frustrating logins with an easy-to-configure policy manager that allows you to customize risk-based policies, in real time, based on contextual data and user behavior. And only when risk is elevated, use step-up next gen authentication methods that utilize fingerprints and facial recognition to enable a frictionless experience for your user.
  4. Establishing trust before issuing credentials.How do you know your user is who he or she claims to be? Or that the device they’re using hasn’t been compromised? Incorporating solutions that allow you to identity-proof your user and device before you issue an identity is key.With Mobile ID Proofing, you are able to do just that. It’s as simple as downloading your company’s mobile app and taking a selfie and capturing a picture of a government issued ID. Then, the authentication service validates the authenticity of submitted documents and device. This transformational step in a trusted identity assurance platform takes security and innovation to the next level. Typically, organizations would use this for customer, partner and employee onboarding.

Workplace mobility is essential to maintaining the frictionless user experience your employees expect. To overcome these common challenges, choose a smarter, customizable authentication solution to reduce added frustration for IT and increase employee productivity. The successful fusion of usability and strong security is no longer a theory — and it puts the power of anytime, anywhere identity authentication at the heart of the enterprise.

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