Technology is changing at a fast pace, and nowhere is this more true than in the area of web applications.  Organizations that use online applications to help grow their business may feel besieged by the ways in which deployment and use of these programs is rapidly shifting from traditional desktop and laptop to PCs to new devices such as tablets and cell phones.  In addition, the proliferation of such devices and the demand for consumer-friendly apps has created an environment in which apps can be customized for many different classes of user.  This, of course, only tends to increase the challenges of web app management.

As any IT manager knows, policies that instruct employees how to interact with technology will never be followed with 100 percent compliance.  Sometimes, in fact, such policies cannot be perfectly followed since technology itself may take some of the decision-making out of the hands of individual employees.  

One challenge to any business organization is that employee time is limited.  In many cases, it is all workers can do to stay up to date with issues involved in their core workflow, which means that little time is left over for researching ancillary issues.  This fact of life in the business world can have a large impact on the level of security present in the workplace, particularly now that mobile devices are becoming such an integral part of many firms both large and small.

When business managers think of IT consulting, what comes to mind is most likely IT solutions that make use of laptops, desktops, and servers; in other words, traditional computers.  While this type of IT consulting is still the dominant form, it is by no means the only one.  In today's mobile world, computing devices are smaller than ever before and frequently go by other names.  The Android smart phone is an example of such a device.

In many businesses, enterprise use of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers is on the rise.  As company employees increasingly want to use such devices in the workplace to perform enterprise tasks, IT service desks and help desks are being flooded with queries on how to integrate them with company networks.  According to recent surveys, help desks have seen an 86% increase in such requests in recent years, with 76% of survey respondents reporting that the growing need for mobile device management is stressing company IT resources past their limits.

One solution to this quandary is for companies in need of improved help desk functions to contract with a managed services provider.  MSPs, unlike many business enterprises, already count mobile device management as one of their core competencies.  An IT service desk run by a managed services provider will already possess the expertise needed to seamlessly integrate iPads and iPhones into the existing structure of a company network.  

Using an MSP for this function will cut down on employee downtime as they struggle with device management and will streamline the support process to maintain enterprise workflow.   Apart from offering technical advice in individual situations, managed services providers can also help enterprises develop coherent policies that support the appropriate use of mobile technology while on the job.  This will help IT help desks and end-users to stay coordinated in terms of acceptable and best practices.

Mobile-integrated IT solutions can boost both efficiency and employee morale.