decisions needs to be made as quickly yet accurately as possible. In risk management, tricks for collecting more “meaningful” information are essential, and with that in mind we've been providing our staff with laptops and data cards for some time. As part of that effort, we've been working on creating a company BCP since the 3.11 disaster nearly a year ago.

K.F.: I get the impression that Monex Group had been working on a BCP since before the 3.11 disaster; was your integration of iPhones part of a specific policy?

Y.I.: It was. With laptops, we'd traditionally provided functions needed for troubleshooting (e.g. E-mail service and system administration panel access), but we decided to integrate iPhones in a way that carved out the E-mail service. Doing so has enabled a coexistence in which we can confirm troubleshooting E-mails on the iPhone and (as necessary) enter the system administration panel and respond from our laptops. Everyone felt that our laptops at that time were overengineered and bulky, making them inconvenient. iPhones, on the other hand, were equipped with “anytime, anywhere” mobility, advanced security, and the engineering to read E-mail smoothly, and since we would also be able to minimize costs, we decided they were an ideal solution.

K.F.: Did you do comparisons with any other devices?

Y.I.: We'd been considering and testing the integration of iPhones since the 3G era, but we were also initially considering WindowsMobile and BlackBerry devices. However, we learned that with other devices, we would have had to build a gateway separately or that the devices had unstable connections with their VPNs, were prohibitively expensive, or had security vulnerabilities, so when it came to selecting a device, we didn't really hesitate to choose the iPhone.

Imposing Restrictions With MDM Meets Strict Financial Security Requirements

K.F.: In sectors like yours that handle customers' important financial assets and related sales / purchasing information, is the adoption of highly functional and mobile devices like smartphones a pretty big hurdle to clear in terms of security demands?

Y.I.: Yes. At the same time we were thinking about how to use smartphones in order to increase professional convenience, we needed to consider an operating framework for using such devices safely in order to protect our company, staff, and most of all, customers.
After choosing the iPhone, we learned on Apple's website that we could use a corporate-oriented management framework called MDM, but at that time there was only a brief announcement that a handful of foreign makers would be offering such services, so we were really eager for a Japanese maker that would provide MDM services!!

K.F.: What were some of your reasons for choosing CLOMO MDM?

Y.I.: Naturally, we appreciated its speed as the first MDM in Japan to be geared towards iOS as well as the developmental power that went into achieving it. In early 2011, information began trickling in that MDM services had begun in Japan as well, and we heard about solutions from three Japanese makers and System Integrators. From among those, however, the only one that offered us peace of mind as an established service that had secured a number of users was CLOMO; the other two solutions we heard about were still being developed and wouldn't have been functional until April.

K.F.: How are you using CLOMO to manage devices?

Y.I.: Initially, we used a configuration profile to restrict a variety of functions (including Youtube, Web browsers, and app installation), making almost everything except the E-mail and calendar functions unusable. Now we use CLOMO MDM to remotely load / revise configuration profiles and verify app installation status, so we've been able to remove some of those restrictions. If we make the intended purpose as well as risks clear, and formulate policy in a way that adheres to the company's security level in advance, we can remotely control the very functions that may lead to information leaks with MDM. As a result, I believe that even companies operating in industries like ours (i.e. the financial sector) that handle highly confidential information can comply with security requirements.

K.F.: CLOMO is offered as a SaaS; was their any resistance to adopting a Cloud solution?

Y.I.: Since we also offer services that combine the Internet and finance, we had no objections to using a Cloud service as long as it was secure. We've also recently integrated Google Apps, transferring our internal E-mail system to the Cloud. While the security weakness of a dual “entrance” is a con that comes along with the pro of allowing anyone access from anywhere as long as they have an ID and password, we maintain the same level of security that we have in-house using access restrictions and a single sign-on service. When integrating Google Apps, we also used CLOMO MDM to remotely revise the iPhone settings of our staff in China and Hong Kong. Now that we're aggressively pursuing overseas development, we're getting a real sense of how incredibly beneficial SaaS is, since we can use the same service infrastructure even if our hub is overseas.
Compared to on-premise services that begin gradually going out of date the moment you adopt them, the passing of time essentially means the sophistication of smartphone / public Cloud functions, and since we can enjoy constant improvement and progress in real-time, we feel that this technology will become a key of companies' competitive power in the future.

Using Devices With Clear Roles

K.F.: What kind of development do you have in mind for the future?

Y.I.: I mentioned earlier the formulation of our BCP, but at this point, we don't anticipate usage where staff would login to our in-house system panel from their iPhone or iPad. As multi-functional as they are, I think it would be impossible to transfer all desktop computer work to smart devices. Companies [considering integrating smart devices] should understand the unique characteristics of each device, choose those that suit their work (including security), and be clearly aware of their purpose.
In the future, we'd like to explore the way we interact with the company and mobility. For example, we want to rethink the tasks we have now in a way that breaks them down into a work module and allots them to each device, with work requiring an immediate action regardless of time and place going to mobile devices and work requiring “concentrated entry” with a keyboard to desktop computers.

K.F.: Thank you for your time.

Interviewer: Keisuke Fukano (Marketing Head Office, i³ Systems)