Guest Column: Optimizing The Mobile Workforce While Achieving Regulatory Compliance

By Karen Steer, Marketing Director, Sybase

Utility companies by nature employ a very mobile workforce. Armed with rugged laptops, tablets, smartphones, and handhelds, field workers require uninterrupted access to mobile data while onsite or on the move. IT is challenged with providing connectivity and management of these mobile devices as well as securing the data stored on them.

Regulatory compliance is also a high priority, as utility companies operate under a host of rigorous federal regulations that have grown stronger in 2010. According to a recent report by Forrester, today's energy companies face an "unprecedented quandary of regulatory requirements and market pressures that in combination, act to disrupt traditional approaches to cutting costs and servicing customers."