Enterprise Mobility. Making the Case For. Remote Access Solutions

Transcription

1 Making the Case For Enterprise Mobility Remote Access Solutions Executive Summary TCO and the AT&T experience supporting mobile users: access options give AT&T employees mobility and flexibility to meet any challenge, any place, any time. For almost 15 years, AT&T has used networking within its operations to create a more flexible, responsive, secure and highly mobile organization. Today some 30 percent of AT&T managers are full-time virtual office workers and an added 41 percent work frequently out of the office. By increasing productivity, reducing real estate costs and cutting employee turnover (helping AT&T retain people who must work remotely), enterprise mobility initiatives are delivering significant business benefits. Enterprise mobility at AT&T extends far beyond the home office or foul weather work-at-home. Solutions reach across the corporate campus and into hotel rooms, conference centers and employee vehicles. Networking enables employees to work where they can be most effective, while they maintain robust communication with customers, associates, supervisors, training resources and corporate leadership. AT&T employees use a combination of broadband wired and wireless access technologies, managed through an easy-to-use networking client, to connect to the AT&T virtual private network. Now location is no limit when employees sit down to work. Hooking up from hotel rooms, WiFi hotspots, customer sites, home offices, airport waiting areas and conference rooms, AT&T employees easily access the people and information they need to get business done. The objective of this paper is to describe the challenges before AT&T, the actions taken to address the challenge, the results achieved and the lessons learned. The Challenge Creating a Business Around Expertise, Not Buildings Responding to a rapidly changing marketplace, AT&T determined in the early 1990s that the company must evolve into a leaner and more agile organization. One key to this transformation would be enterprise mobility. Company leaders reasoned that employees able to work effectively from anywhere, in virtually any situation, could help the company reach new levels of productivity and business continuity. Working from home or when traveling is not new. Employees have long used time at home to focus concentrated energy on key tasks, or to keep business moving when weather closed the roads. For others, travel was part of the job, and the whole job including the need to keep in touch with customers and associates traveled with them. When AT&T first researched the topic in 1992, eight percent of managers worked remotely at least once a week. Yet much more was possible. AT&T decided to provide employees with powerful communication tools that would enable them to network with customers and co-workers anywhere, any time, as effectively as they could from a corporate office. The vision involved much more than home-office workers and travelers. Enterprise mobility would become a hallmark of work for almost every AT&T employee. The goal: free people from the limits of place and time so they could be fully productive from home, hotel room, virtual office, on the road or anywhere on the corporate campus. IT will start thinking about mobility not as a new and emerging technology, but as an integral part of the IT infrastructure. Mobile Application Adoption Leaps Forward - Forrester Research, Inc. August 2005 These plans got a huge boost from the widespread and growing use of cellular wireless communications, the appearance of broadband cellular services and most dramatically the increasing speed, plummeting cost and mushrooming presence of wireless WiFi access networks and hotspots. This was an opportunity to create a new kind of organization: a net-centric company organized around expertise instead of buildings; a company in which people could get down to business not just across the table, but across the globe. AT&T s decision to expand access across the enterprise was driven by business needs and made possible by new enabling technologies. Among the principal objectives:

2 Making the Case For - Enterprise Mobility 2 Focusing on Networks, Not Buildings Road Warriors Client Sites AT&T Satellite Office Workers Full or Part-Time Virtual Office Workers Full-Time Office Workers Strengthen Employee Productivity From the executive suite to the home office and hotel lobby, AT&T would deploy powerful communication technology to help AT&T people get more done in less time and turn commuting hours into productive ones. wireless technology would give many employees outside the office the kind of secure high-speed connectivity once available only on the corporate campus. Instant messaging and cellular networks enabled employees to respond immediately. Increase Customer Intimacy Moving sales and service employees out of the office and closer to customers even, in some instances, onto customer sites helps strengthen communications with customers and respond faster to their needs. Bolster Business Continuity Weather emergencies and other disruptions can keep people from reaching the office or knock a single worksite out of service. But such exigencies are unlikely to significantly disrupt an organization dispersed across thousands of locations, yet networked together in real-time. Reduce Real Estate Costs AT&T could reduce its real estate footprint by moving employees out of corporate buildings and supporting them in virtual offices instead. Support Dispersed Operations The increasing availability of WiFi hotspots in hotels, cafes and other public locations, together with cellular broadband networking standards like EDGE and EV-DO, opened new opportunities for AT&T people to be productive almost anywhere business might take them. In addition, technical support personnel would benefit by having access to problem tickets while working in the field, so AT&T explored emerging technologies to determine their effectiveness in meeting these needs. Capitalize on Advancing Technology As AT&T considered these needs and opportunities, networking technology was offering up solutions. The growing availability of broadband access including digital subscriber line (DSL), coaxial cable, fiber to the home (FTTH) and on the horizon, WiMax wide-area Building on a Legacy of Networking: the AT&T Enterprise Mobility Timeline 2000 AT&T deploys the first generation AT&T Global Network client, simplifying the process for mobile employees to connect to corporate information resources and delivering $10 million in annual savings Large scale virtual office deployments begin; rise of the fully virtual organization AT&T installs campus WiFi networks at its major locations in Bedminster and Middletown, N.J. The company standardizes on the IEEE A/G multi-frequency standard in all new laptop computers Teleworkers begin switching to Voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) service to increase productivity, cut costs Introduction of automated intelligence in the 6.4 release of the AT&T Global Network client. Provides secure, seamless integration into VPN, while retaining corporate control of access to enterprise applications. User enjoys single sign-on for all applications, regardless of network connection type.

3 Making the Case For - Enterprise Mobility 3 The Solution New Tools and a Changed Culture Enterprise mobility at AT&T engages a wide variety of end users who have highly divergent job requirements. The company supports these employees with a network that enables mobility and provides an arsenal of communication tools. Some employees use almost all of those tools. Others use only a few. But tools and technology are just part of the solution. The fundamental goal of enterprise mobility is to make people and the organizations to which they belong more productive and effective. Mobility solutions do so by erasing location (and to some extent, time zone) as a factor that could hamper the employee s ability to gain information, make and share decisions and get things done. Let s look at AT&T s implementation of enterprise mobility technology in two categories. In the first category are networking and productivity tools AT&T people use primarily as individuals. In the second category are mass communication tools used mainly by organizations for training, disseminating information and aligning the efforts of workers. One might call these initiatives getting everyone on the same page. AT&T s enterprise mobility solutions combine powerful and secure data and voice communications to support workers at home, together with solutions to make it easier and more effective to work when on the road or moving around the corporate campus. Additional solution elements give employees and the company mass communication capability. These give individual employees the power to network with groups of others, and enable AT&T to deliver training and other corporate information directly to employees regardless of location. Tools for Individual Productivity Individual Communication Tools Secure Remote Access Easy Access Management VoIP (AT&T CallVantage) Managed Wireless LANs Cell Phones & PDAs Tools for Better Collaboration Personal Teleconferencing Web Meetings Content Delivery Services Secure Remote Access Secure remote access to the AT&T corporate data network is a foundational mobility tool for the company. Low cost, widely available broadband access has given a major boost to remote worker productivity across the company. Most employees today have access to some sort of broadband access technology, such as DSL (digital subscriber line), cable or fiber to the home (FTTH). AT&T provides secure, tunneled and encrypted access to corporate resources such as the AT&T Intranet, using virtual private network (VPN) services over AT&T s Internet protocol (IP)-enabled multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) network. This methodology creates remote access that satisfies corporate security needs using industry-wide security standards that meet or exceed requirements such as those mandated by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and government requirements set by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Simplified Access Management Simplified access management using the AT&T Global Network (AGN) Client helps AT&T mobile workers easily negotiate their way among multiple options for connecting to the AT&T network. The AGN Client is a computer application that seamlessly integrates multiple connectivity choices (including WiFi, dialup, broadband VPN and cellular) through a single, uniform computer interface. When multiple access choices are available, the client can be configured to automatically select the optimum access method. To ensure security no matter where employees may be working, or over what kind of network, the AGN Client features an embedded firewall, encryption and an optional managed personal firewall for added protection. AT&T has established processes to test and certify equipment and technologies to work with its foundation network architecture. In practice, however, it is impossible to test and certify every new equipment item that shows up on the market. So the company has standardized the configuration between the embedded firewall in the AGN Client and the network-based firewall used in AT&T s internal network. Both work together to assure that connections are secure, regardless of WiFi or LAN provider or the access device in use. Today more than 29,000 AT&T employees, including 5,000 outside the U.S., use the remote access client. Across the globe, new access technologies are emerging and broadband growth is dramatic: In some emerging markets, broadband availability will triple between 2004 and Even in highly advanced markets such as Korea and Japan, the mix of access methods is changing as technologies such as Ethernet compete with digital subscriber line (DSL). The bottom line is that the best available access method varies widely in different locations. This global diversity is a positive trend, but not something a busy AT&T employee has time to worry about as they access the network. The AT&T Global Network Client helps free employees from access issues and gives them a consistent, easy user experience, whatever the connection technology. By setting access rules within the client software across the enterprise, AT&T s IT managers can control and optimize remote access according to agreements with specific vendors, available access methodologies and even to the individual user level. To simplify even more, AGN Client updates are downloaded automatically through the network.

4 Making the Case For - Enterprise Mobility 4 Human factors were key in the AGN Client rollout. It began with a controlled introduction in the company s IT Services organization, the first to experience challenges users would face, learn and make the appropriate adjustments. Next step was a letter to employees describing AGN Client benefits and urging them to download and use the software. One recipient in ten took action. But other letters followed, and acceptance grew. The company could have cut off users who didn t adopt the new method, but did not. There was no way to know which users were involved in truly urgent projects. Ultimately the implementation team looked at usage patterns of those who weren t on board, contacted the heavy users directly, and eliminated dialup access for the others, so they had to comply. Thanks to the AGN Client, broadband data communication at home and in many locations, on the road is essentially as easy to use, secure and capable as the communication services at corporate office locations. Such effortless connectivity is crucial for Anthony Bratti, AT&T Director of Global Services. Traveling to India, Shanghai, Beijing and Singapore in Fall 2005, Bratti used a potpourri of access methods. In India and Beijing it was WiFi. In Shanghai and Singapore, a wired connection via the AGN Client to an Ethernet port in his hotel. It is simple and easy wherever I travel Asia, Brazil or the European countries, Bratti says. I simply boot up and click on the client. AT&T CallVantage Service AT&T CallVantage Service takes advantage of broadband connections by reserving part of the bandwidth for digitized voice (Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP). While most virtual office employees maintain one home office line for voice and a second connection for data, those using VoIP can drop the voice line and save $20 or more each month. In addition, since most long distance calls travel over the corporate data network instead of the public toll network, the corporate long distance bill shrinks too. Beyond savings there are productivity advantages. Employees working from home offices or on the road say the most important feature of AT&T CallVantage is the ability the service provides to access voice mail from a web page. It also provides locate me capability, dialing up to five user-programmed numbers in simultaneously or in sequence if the user doesn t pick up a call. Call logs keep track of calling activities, phone numbers and calling features. Users report saving about one hour a week (one extra week each year, a 2.5 percent increase) thanks to these productivity-boosting features. Managed Wireless LANs Managed wireless LANs bring the benefits of enhanced mobility to users on AT&T corporate campuses. For visitors at major sites, WiFi connectivity provides a fast and convenient way to connect to the Internet and check and voice mail. Those with offices on campus benefit too, since they have instant broadband connectivity in meeting rooms, when visiting another office, and in common areas such as the building lobby or cafeteria. Enterprise Mobility at AT&T: Users & Solutions Full or Part-Time Virtual Office Road Warriors Client Sites Satellite Office Workers Full-Time Office Workers Objectives Satisfied Broadband Access AT&T Global Network Client AT&T CallVantage (VoIP) Managed Wireless Services Campus Wi-Fi Cellular Broadband Personal Teleconferencing Web Conferencing Content Delivery X X X X X X Objectives Key Strengthen employee productivity Increase customer intimacy 3 4 Bolster business continuity Reduce real estate costs 5 6 Support dispersed operations Capitalize on advancing technology

5 Making the Case For - Enterprise Mobility 5 The wireless LAN simplifies the transition from permanent offices to guest offices used by visitors and virtual office workers who spend most of their time elsewhere, since it s not necessary to support physical LAN connections. And the wireless LAN infrastructure will be able to handle WiFi voice communication when that technology is more mature. Starting in December 2003, AT&T installed multi-standard WiFi LANs using IEEE A and G protocols at its major locations in Bedminster and Middletown, N.J. At the same time, the company started delivering laptop computers under the corporate hardware refresh program with built in A/G WiFi networking. Today 65 percent of AT&T laptops are WiFi ready. Now serving up to 8,000 workers on the two campuses and covering 2.6 million square feet, wireless LANs are delivering gains in productivity, increased security and support for mobile workers who use temporary offices, an arrangement called hoteling. Use of wireless networking in hoteling space has reduced wiring installation and maintenance costs by 80 percent. Conference rooms now support multiple users, all connected to the Internet and corporate Intranet, without need for wired connections. The low cost of WiFi is a benefit, but makes it easy for unauthorized or rogue hotspots to pop up. The AT&T secure LAN automatically detects unauthorized access points so they can be shut down. Security is high, because the WLAN will not allow unauthorized access to the network. The use of advanced encryption using the 3DES IPsec standard completes the security arrangements. The WiFi network of more than 350 wireless access points and four central WLAN switch controllers (two primary and two backup) can be readily expanded to handle larger loads, and provides the infrastructure necessary for the future addition of WiFi telephony. WiFi Pays Off Outside the Corporate Campus Too With increasing numbers of hotels, restaurants, cafes and libraries operating WiFi hotspots, the availability and value of the technology is benefiting AT&T users. AT&T has established agreements with multiple service provider firms, allowing AT&T to offer its enterprise customers WiFi access from more than 20,000 hotspots, integrated into their VPN. These same agreements allow AT&T employees integrated access from these hotspots, thereby cutting administrative overhead by avoiding the need to reimburse employees individually for business WiFi usage. The ability to choose from multiple access alternatives provides important business continuity advantages. When hurricane Wilma struck southwest Florida in October 2005, one AT&T marketing manager lost power to her home office. She moved with her laptop to a nearby bagel café, where she used the WiFi network access to inform key contacts she was OK and log into work. Mass Communication Tools Dispersing the AT&T organization across the globe raises significant issues. Employees need tools that give them access to their customers and each other (such as those described above), but in addition, the company needs tools to contact, guide, inform and train its mobile workforce. Mass communication tools fill these needs. Do-It-Yourself or Reservationless Teleconferencing Do-It-Yourself or Reservationless Teleconferencing encourages employees to network and collaborate by enabling each employee to easily arrange conferences as needed. As AT&T implements VoIP and IP telephony across the company, employees can arrange economical conference calls with up to ten participants. Reservationless conferences now add up to 24 million user minutes a month. Because Reservationless conferencing costs less than traditional voice conferencing and vastly less than travel to face-to-face meetings this high level of collaboration comes at the lowest possible price. Web Meetings Web meetings add graphics and video to extend the teamwork power of audio conferencing. Secure web meetings enable users to share applications and graphic information and work together using whiteboard applications. To increase convenience and keep costs in check, web conferencing services are managed through a Web page. Some 6,500 employees are registered for the service, using approximately 2.4 million minutes per month. Content Distribution Services Content distribution services using AT&T s Internet Content Distribution Service (ICDS) enable the company to provide consistent information to thousands of employees at once. Content delivery helps answer a question raised in a highly mobile organization: How do we keep everyone aligned toward the same goals? In effect, content delivery replaces the company auditorium and the training center classroom. Using the content delivery network, the company can deliver live webcasts to virtual office users, provide on-demand playback of previous webcasts. By delivering Web-based training, AT&T virtually eliminates the distraction and cost of travel for training. Results A Global Organization on the Move AT&T s enterprise mobility solutions have created a company in which a worker s presence is everything, while their location is truly beside the point. Today AT&T s enterprise remote access tools are pervasive. What began as an effort to help employees work more productively at home and on the road has spread into nearly every job category and involves almost everyone in every company location, home office and service vehicle. A 2004 random survey of 1,347 AT&T managers showed that almost one third (30 percent) worked full time outside a corporate campus or building. That s almost double the 17 percent who reported full-time virtual office work in , and that number in turn almost doubled from the 9 percent reporting full time virtual office work in In addition to the 30 percent who are full time virtual office workers, 41 percent of managers work from home an average of a day or two each week. Another 19 percent work remotely when weather or other factors prevent them from working at their regular office. To sum it up: when circumstances require it, a full 90 percent of AT&T management employees work remotely at some time.

6 Making the Case For - Enterprise Mobility 6 The payoff from AT&T s mobility revolution is occurring on several levels. Increased Productivity Networked teams have no geographical boundaries and work easily across global time zones. Find me telephony and other techniques prevent workers out of sight from ever being out of reach. Accustomed to the networked work style, teams coalesce quickly to tackle a project and marshal the resources to get it done. Ten Million in Savings Through Direct Remote Access VPN access through the AT&T Global Network Client reduced the cost of remote network access by $10 million annually. Before, the company s 40,000 remote users reached the company network by dialing a toll-free 800 number, incurring access costs of several cents each minute they were connected. Reservationless Audio Teleconferencing Reservationless audio teleconferencing delivers additional savings. Employees no longer have to call a teleconferencing specialist to set up a call. AT&T conference specialists can focus their energy on high-touch/high value customer requirements, rather than managing logistics for internal meetings. More than 18,000 employees have created folders that establish them as conference hosts, and they have established 15,700 reservationless conference bridges. Reservationless conferencing delivers operational advantages too. Team members become familiar with the bridge numbers and use them to meet just as easily and often as they would in a physical conference room or the boss s office. Findings Lessons Learned There are few large enterprises as committed as AT&T has been to exploring the productivity potential that can be achieved with emerging enterprise mobility capabilities. The company s determined effort to become a more agile enterprise has given AT&T important insights into how to make the most of enterprise mobility capabilities. Among those lessons: Discipline Brings Success Though some mobility enablers, such as VoIP, clearly bring down costs, the ROI for others is more difficult to measure. For instance, wireless access clearly gives workers new options and capabilities, but it also adds cost. The issue is whether productivity offsets the added expense. So AT&T has been disciplined in the way it makes mobility tools available. The company closely scrutinized the cost and performance of WiFi before installing its campus WiFi network. For other mobility enablers, such as cellular broadband, authorization policy is set by the business units with direct profit-loss accountability. Availability depends on such factors as the individual employee s job responsibilities and location. Enterprise Mobility Extends Far Beyond the Home Office AT&T also supports traveling workers and even those whose mobility takes them no farther than across the corporate campus. The underlying principle is to enable people to communicate and remain productive, no matter where their workday takes them. Lessons Learned A mobile workforce can be: More flexible More responsive More productive However, success depends on: Robust security Broad network availability A simple, standardized interface User training and communication Security is Essential Employees accessing the network from anywhere could infect it with malware from everywhere. Easy access could open the door to network intruders. So AT&T uses layers of security. The AGN Client has built-in security capabilities that are specifically designed to work in synch with network-based firewall so that the wireless connectivity is never a point of vulnerability. The AT&T WiFi campus network uses the triple data encryption standard IP security (3DES IPsec) protocol, a mode that encrypts data three times and provides a far higher level of security than the standard WEP (wired equivalent privacy) security protocol. But the most powerful provision for network security is the network itself. The AT&T internal network itself scrubs traffic and halts such problems as viruses, spam and denial of service attacks before they can cause harm. When Working Remotely, Availability is Everything The key is the availability of the network. When employees have access tools readily at hand, such as, the AT&T Global Network client, laptops, softphone applications, campus WiFi networks and both wired and wireless broadband access to secure VPNs, they can reach and use the network from almost anywhere. These networked employees, in turn, are instantly available to help customers and team members get the job done. It s Important to Manage the Human Side Without full user participation, the benefits of mobility will go unrealized. So AT&T has been careful to train users and communicate how the various mobility tools will perform, and the operational requirements users must meet. Mobility Strengthens Business Continuity Scenarios that prevent key people from reaching the office should not cause a company to lose productivity because decision makers are not available. So even those who normally spend the day at a company office should be equipped to work productively, when necessary, from home, a hotel or an alternate work site. At AT&T, only 10 percent of management employees say they never work remotely.

7 Making the Case For - Enterprise Mobility 7 Simpler is Better Employees who may be dealing with the challenges of travel value the simplicity of the AT&T Global Network Client, which provides easy and secure access to the network through a variety of access methods (dialup, cable, DSL or wireless) and makes it easy to pick and use the best available access method. Set Standards to Boost Speed and Cut Costs Adopting a uniform approach, including standard hardware and software platforms, standard end user device platforms, standard installation practices (governing documentation and procedures, including both operations and end user activities) help reduce costs, avoid delays and ensure technical implementations perform as expected. Conclusion The decision to become a highly mobile company seems simple, but implementation is not. Technological challenges are significant; there is no gain in investing in remote access if those investments do not pay for themselves in increased productivity, reduced costs, or both. Yet in AT&T s experience, the effort pays tremendous dividends. Employees now work effectively from almost anywhere, in any situation. Teams today coalesce around a project, review progress, decide the next steps and hang up the phone. They can be highly effective without every needing to meet in person. AT&T employees stay in constant contact with customers and associates, even as they travel and work across time zones and around the globe. As never before, it s not where you are, but who you are and what you can do for team, customer and company that makes the difference. AT&T remote access solutions deliver the tools and technologies to make that impact, regardless of location. The benefit at the corporate bottom line is significant; mobility helps create a corporate competitive advantage in employee and customer satisfaction. References 1. Lessons Learned From The Network-Centric Organization: 2004 AT&T Employee Telework Results, by Joseph Roitz, Binny Nanavata and George Levy, AT&T Telework Center of Excellence 2. Ibid. 3. Mary Ann Avola in interview, Sept. 30, Chris Morley in interview, July 21, Avola, op cit. 6. Avola, op cit. 7. Lessons Learned From The Network-Centric Organization: 2004 AT&T Employee Telework Results, by Joseph Roitz, Binny Nanavata and George Levy, AT&T Telework Center of Excellence 8. Organizing Around Networks, Not Buildings: 2002/2003 AT&T Employee Telework Research Results, by Joseph Roitz, Dr. Brad Allenby, Dr. Robert Atkyns and Binny Nanavati 9. Ibid 10. Avola, op cit. 11. Avola, op cit. For more information contact an AT&T Representative or visit

8 Making the Case For - Enterprise Mobility 8 About the Series This is one in a series of case studies aimed at sharing the lessons AT&T has learned within its own business about how next-generation networking solutions can pay off: enhancing productivity and reducing total cost of ownership (TCO). Our goal is to provide real world answers, based on real life experience, that help executives deal effectively with today s business issues. Our own approach to enterprise networking is built on the principle that solutions must deliver value and enhance the performance of business applications. We begin with a vision to consolidate our network into a single, global, MPLS-enabled IP network with consolidated operating support systems. We hope that these papers will serve our customers as a practical networking roadmap. We have put this roadmap to the test inside our own business. AT&T faces the same business challenges as other enterprises, and we believe strongly that the solutions we provide our customers should be the same that we use across our own company. If a solution creates value for AT&T, it will for customers, as well AT&T Knowledge Ventures. All rights reserved. 05/12/06 AB