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For This Major Financial Firm, Replacing MobileIron for BlackBerry was a Sound Investment

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At a Glance

Initially a MobileIron customer with approximately 1,000 Good for Enterprise® licenses, this financial services organization sought to consolidate down to a single vendor. With that plan in mind, it began evaluating other vendors, hoping to find one that would support a BYOD deployment environment. Ultimately, BlackBerry was identified as the best option thanks to excellent support, a secure container, and features such as single-sign-on.

The firm has now opted to deploy the BlackBerry® Enterprise Mobility Suite – Application Edition to its user base of approximately 5,500.

The Organization

Like many in its industry, this major financial services firm must always remain cognizant of cybersecurity. With millions of customer accounts and more than a hundred billion dollars in client assets, one slip-up could result in a torrent of lost revenue. Though its workers use mobility extensively, they do so while adhering to strict security standards.

Seeking to better-enable those workers, the organization re-evaluated its mobile security infrastructure, consisting primarily of MobileIron with approximately 1,000 Good for Enterprise licenses. Decision-makers at the firm knew they needed something better than what they already had. This realization eventually led them to BlackBerry.

The Challenge

A long-time MobileIron client, the firm had until recently used the vendor’s mobile device management (MDM) platform to support its mobile employees on iOS® devices. Some staff also used Good for Enterprise to access containerized email, while others used corporate-owned BlackBerry® 10 devices. Driven both by end-user demand and several upcoming acquisitions, the firm sought to switch to a mobile strategy that provided security and productivity without the need for MDM.

“The client’s corporate strategy was to get down to one vendor, consolidating the different solutions they had in place,” explains the BlackBerry Account Manager. “They were under some pressure to implement a BYOD strategy and needed a containerized solution that would allow them to accomplish this. The key issue was that this solution needed to be able to apply that containerization without an MDM profile.”

The organization wanted to be able to easily separate work and personal data on employee devices, allowing their users to be as productive as possible while leveraging the software and hardware they were most familiar with.

It decided that switching from corporate-owned to BYOD was the best way to accomplish this. However, to stay secure and compliant, it would need a platform that allowed it to containerize and control corporate applications on unmanaged devices. It would also need to ensure its employees could still use a secure browser to access corporate intranet – again, without requiring an MDM profile on a device.

Finally, it wanted to develop custom applications in as streamlined a way as possible. It quickly became clear that these were all things MobileIron could not provide. And so, after some evaluation, the firm decided to switch to the BlackBerry Enterprise Mobility Suite – Application Edition.

A powerful suite of tools that allows the development of custom applications combined with powerful endpoint management and enterprise email, calendar, contacts, presence, document access, document editing and more, the BlackBerry Enterprise Mobility Suite – Application Edition also includes advanced insight into app usage through BlackBerry® Analytics.

We wouldn’t have really gotten this far without maintaining an incredibly active relationship with the client. We talk to them bi-weekly at the least – and usually daily. Our engagement is what really drove the relationship forward, along with our Professional Services Team.”  

Account Manager,
BlackBerry

The Solution

After discussing its strategy with BlackBerry, the firm chose to purchase perpetual licenses for the BlackBerry Enterprise Mobility Suite – Application Edition. It has currently transferred 5,500 of its users over to BlackBerry® UEM, a single-console endpoint management and policy control platform. This will be used to manage a number of mobile apps, including custom apps the firm intends to develop with BlackBerry® Dynamics, a powerful secure container that serves as a foundation for many of BlackBerry’s applications.

“The feedback on the product has all been good,” explains the Account Manager. “We provided a lot of capabilities that the client couldn’t get with other platforms. For example, to access Salesforce, they need an internal IP address within their network – BlackBerry® Access can provide that seamlessly via Single-Sign-On.”

More than the capabilities of BlackBerry’s products, the client was impressed with the dedication of BlackBerry’s people. BlackBerry spoke to the client on at least a bi-weekly basis, often touching base daily to answer questions and help them through any issues they encountered with the transition.

“We developed a phenomenal relationship with the client’s IT staff and executive users,” says the Account Manager. “The way we conducted ourselves garnered a lot of trust on the part of the client – they saw how serious we were about promoting their growth and success. Selling them BlackBerry® Premium Support Services and connecting them with a Premium Services Manager only further deepened our relationship with them.”

The Results

Since consolidating its infrastructure onto BlackBerry UEM, the firm has enjoyed several significant benefits.

BlackBerry Secure: Security has always been one of BlackBerry’s greatest strengths, and it has designed its portfolio to be as seamless as possible. This was a significant driver in the client’s decision to choose BlackBerry.

“The finance industry is a heavily regulated space, so obviously security was a huge concern for this client,” notes the Account Manager. “That plays right into BlackBerry’s backbone – into our DNA as a company. Clients know that if their data is with us, it’s safe.”

User Satisfaction: Since employees and executives can now use their own devices in the workplace, they have the ability to be far more productive.

“IT is happy because BlackBerry allows them to stay secure and compliant,” the Account Manager says. “The end-users, meanwhile, are happy because everything is easy to use, and because they can work on any of the devices they know best.”

Significant Cost Savings: Since switching to a BYOD deployment model, the firm has seen a considerable reduction in overhead. It no longer needs to worry about refreshing old devices or paying for the entire usage of each device month-by-month. Instead, it can allow employees to bring their own devices to work, reimbursing only the data they use to do their jobs.

“The strategy of going BYOD was definitely meant to save on costs,” says the Account Manager. “Corporate devices were costing the firm quite a bit of money. Now that they’ve switched over to BlackBerry UEM, the client is looking at our analytics offering, and will likely select it to track data usage and determine their reimbursement policy.”

Custom Applications: With MobileIron, the firm did not have any custom apps. Once the consolidation and expansion are complete, they plan to change that. There are already several planned applications, including one that uses artificial intelligence. The client is also looking into enabling several BlackBerry Dynamics ISV apps on user devices, including Qlik® and Tableau®.

Future Plans: The firm is also strongly considering AppDome®, which will allow it to seamlessly and securely fuse applications like Tableau with its existing infrastructure. It is also testing a Bring-Your-Own-Laptop program with BlackBerry Access, a secure remote browser for Windows 10 and MacOS. Lastly, it is looking into BlackBerry Analytics for more than just device reimbursement – decision-makers are aware of its potential to drive better app design and development and may eventually use Analytics to track app usage and adoption.