The modern workplace offers compelling long-term business benefits. From reduced costs and improved productivity to an enhanced employee experience. But enrolling a scalable and sustainable modern workplace, calls for robust, secure workplace foundation. And so, Port of Antwerp-Bruges called in mobco’s help. Cyber Resilience Manager, Yannick Herrebaut, about his collaboration with mobco and VMware.
Yannick Herrebaut, Cyber Resilience Manager Port Of Antwerp-Bruges.
Why mobco as a partner for Port of Antwerp-Bruges?
mobco has been our trusted partners for mobile device management for years. At the beginning of our collaboration mobco supported us in running the Blackberry EMM solution. But recently, we wanted to reevaluate the choice for this platform, with specific focus on the security requirements of the modern workplace.
What would be the impact of a weak security posture of POA?
Security is a very important aspect for us given our designation as critical infrastructure and operator of essential services. Port of Antwerp-Bruges also plays a key role in domestic and international trade. We cannot afford security breaches. This could mean a disaster for our organization, our clients and stakeholders, and for the economy.
What other requests did you make before choosing a partner?
We consider R&D, mobile, windows 10 and user experience as key factors. An expert team of mobco helped us in our quest to look for a solution that delivered the perfect customer employee experience while keeping the highest standards in data security and IT operational efficiency. The solution they proposed is also future proof.
What solution did they propose?
In collaboration with SoftwareONE, mobco selected VMWare as a partner to provide integration services and support for Port of Antwerp-Bruges. The discussion was not only budgetary, but mainly functionally. VMware provides a robust environment and it can also be used in a modular way. Nowadays, we are using VMware to manage iOS and Android, but we also have the possibility to extend the scope to SSO and Windows 10.
Which of the VMWare capabilities are most valuable to you and why?
Security is really important for Port of Antwerp-Bruges, s, we want to make sure that all our employees and devices can connect to applications like Microsoft Office 365 in a safe way. With Workspace One we were able to integrate with Microsoft and configure the right policies in an easy way. So, only authenticated users, on compliant devices can connect to the applications they need. Although we increased security, Workspace One offered a great way to get seamless access to those applications, in this way we were sure that our employees had the best experience. VMware Workspace One enables a platform approach that supports the growth ambitions of Port of Antwerp-Bruges.
What is the added value of mobco?
The people at mobco are experts, they know the technology, but they also know our infrastructure, our concerns, our roadmap. The modern workplace consists of many components and we value mobco for delivering us expertise in every of those domains.
What about the current collaboration between you and mobco/VMware?
One thing is for sure, in this domain of IT activity there’s never a boring day, and everything changes all the time. Both mobco and VMware, due to their laser focus on the modern workplace, keep us up to date and continue to invest in this domain. A must have when you want to be successful in the modern workplace.
What advice can you give someone looking for security solutions to address similar challenges to the ones you were facing?
Know your business, do risk assessments, do your own due diligence. But most importantly, don’t forget to look at the bigger picture. Yes, technology is important, but the people helping you with implementing it are equally important.