Cisco Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client v2.x White Paper

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White Paper

From Remote Access to Secure Mobility: Enabling
Next Generation Workforce Productivity

Why Mobility Matters

Technology has always ushered in new opportunities for productivity enhancement. Companies that can embrace

and exploit technological innovation, particularly its disruptive aspects, typically win in the market or capture market

share over those that cannot. Today, a new wave of technological disruption is upon us: the hyper-extension of

corporate mobility

—enable employees to work from anywhere at any time.

Corporate mobility is not new for enterprises. In fact, remote access and telecommuting solutions have existed for

quite some time. But what is new is the astounding rate of change in corporate mobility platforms and the ability for

the enterprise to support it, coupled with the fact that the change is being ushered in by employees, not the

traditional IT group.

Corporations must embrace mobility to remain competitive and evolve to a new model of efficient workloads. In
today’s lean economic times, downsizing and global outsourcing are the norm; companies must do more with less.

Embracing mobility is in the best interest of corporate organizations as it leads to even greater productivity than

what we have achieved with the Internet.

Not only is it i

mperative from a competitive standpoint, but the shifting demographics of today’s workforces also

demand it. As baby boomers retire and become a smaller part of the working population over the next 20 years, the

gen Y and millennial generations will rapidly grow to equal and surpass the generation X subset of workers in our

global society. These generations believe in the social web, Internet communities, constant communication, and
information exchange. Many of today’s younger workers have been brought up with such a pervasive Internet
connection that making use of their ability to be “always on” for corporate purposes has the potential to create a

huge boon in productivity.

Challenges of Embracing Mobility

Enterprises have spent millions of dollars enabling remote connectivity by creating network and security

infrastructures, then poking deliberate holes through their borders. In fact, VPNs have played a major role in

enabling laptops to become the mobility device of choice. However, this is rapidly changing. As smartphones and

tablets surpass the compute power of the traditional PC-based devices from only a few years ago, their richer,

better-designed user interfaces, their place as the voice communication device in the case of smartphones, and

their built-

in support for pervasive wireless connectivity are quickly making them the employees’ devices of choice.

Perhaps the biggest challenge enterprises face is the loss of control. In this new world, consumers, who are also

corporate employees, are pushing the agenda. They are voting with their dollars for devices with slicker interfaces,

a better user experience, and more convenience. Employees are finding ways of enabling these devices

—

sanctioned or unsanctioned

—on their corporate networks, and corporate standards that encumber this are quickly

sidestepped.