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In these times, embracing consumerization is not only inevitable for any company; it is now, at some level, necessary. It’s become a powerful business tool, providing efficiency to the company, as well as convenience to the employees. The usage of mobile devices in corporate environments is a primary example of how enterprises apply consumerization, a practice that enterprises apply more and more each day.

With continued adoption comes challenges. The risks around mobile threats are typically focused on malicious apps, but for enterprises there are other problems. Since the devices are used to store, send, and receive corporate data, protecting them from unauthorized access is critical to the company. So how can we maintain enterprise-level security in consumer-level devices?

The risks entailed by consumerization has proven to be difficult to deal with — the complexity of managing multiple platforms, separating personal and corporate data, avoiding data leakage, and addressing privacy concerns has enterprises struggling to find the balance between convenience and security. And as the balance remains to be achieved, the risk grows. Mismanaging consumerization has proven to be costly for enterprises, as cybercriminals now see the inclusion of mobile devices in enterprise networks as an addition to their attack surface — a new vector that they can use to infiltrate.

In the past we’ve talked about a three-step plan to consumerization, which includes having a plan, identifying a set of policies to implement, and putting in the right infrastructure to apply the identified policies.

Our Trend Micro Safe Mobile Workforce is an example of the infrastructure that can be used in embracing consumerization. It is a virtual mobile infrastructure solution that aims to answer the needs of both IT managers and employees in consumerization by providing a clear infrastructure that separate corporate and personal data. It hosts the mobile operating system on centralized servers to provide a safe infrastructure whenever users need to access corporate information.

What does this mean for users? It means that their corporate mobile environment is not stored in their device, so their data remains secure even if the device gets lost. They can also access their environment from any location, without being tied to a single device. This also means that there is no limitation in terms of functionality when the employee uses the device for personal purposes.

What does this mean for IT administrators? it means that they will be able to fully manage and maintain all corporate environments connected to the network (Android and iOS) through the centralized server. And since Safe Mobile Workforce completely separates corporate and user data, administrators get to have full control of the corporate environment without worrying about privacy concerns from the employees.

To get a better idea of how the Trend Micro Safe Mobile Workforce works, check out our infographic, Split Screen: Separating Corporate from Personal Data on Mobile Devices.