Unilever
Interactive Session 7
UNILEVER SEGURES ITS MOBILE DEVICES
Unilever is a $54 billion global manufacturer and supplier of fast-moving consumer goods, including brands such as Q-Tips, Lipton tea, and Dove personal care products. It operates in
57 countries, with regional teams for Europe, the Americas, and Asia/Africa (including
Australia.) Unilever also has teams for its Foods and Home and Personal Care products.
This global giant is known for its ability to leverage products and brands throughout the world by tailoring them to local conditions and for its commitment to top-quality management. Unilever recruits its managers from all over the world and carefully trains them to serve as a unifying force for its operations.
In March 2004, Unilever's senior management ordered the company's thousand top executives to be equipped with mobile handheld devices to increase their productivity. The devices had to provide both voice and data transmission, operate on different wireless networks, be able to view e-mail attachments, such as Word files, and run on battery power for more than four hours.
The company selected BlackBerry 7100, 7290, and 8700 handhelds from Research in Motion because they were the leader in their category and they worked with heterogeneous e-mail servers and multiple wireless network standards, including CDMA and Wi-Fi.
Selecting the handheld was the easy part. The hard part was making sure Unilever's handhelds were secure. Wireless handhelds are easy to lose or steal because they're so portable, and they are penetrable by hackers and other outsiders. PDAs and smart phones, especially those used by senior executives, often store sensitive corporate data such as sales figures, social security numbers, customer names, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses.
Unauthorized users may be able to access internal corporate networks through these devices.
Downloading unauthorized data or messages may introduce disabling malware.
Tony Farah, Unilever's director of
UNILEVER SEGURES ITS MOBILE DEVICES
Unilever is a $54 billion global manufacturer and supplier of fast-moving consumer goods, including brands such as Q-Tips, Lipton tea, and Dove personal care products. It operates in
57 countries, with regional teams for Europe, the Americas, and Asia/Africa (including
Australia.) Unilever also has teams for its Foods and Home and Personal Care products.
This global giant is known for its ability to leverage products and brands throughout the world by tailoring them to local conditions and for its commitment to top-quality management. Unilever recruits its managers from all over the world and carefully trains them to serve as a unifying force for its operations.
In March 2004, Unilever's senior management ordered the company's thousand top executives to be equipped with mobile handheld devices to increase their productivity. The devices had to provide both voice and data transmission, operate on different wireless networks, be able to view e-mail attachments, such as Word files, and run on battery power for more than four hours.
The company selected BlackBerry 7100, 7290, and 8700 handhelds from Research in Motion because they were the leader in their category and they worked with heterogeneous e-mail servers and multiple wireless network standards, including CDMA and Wi-Fi.
Selecting the handheld was the easy part. The hard part was making sure Unilever's handhelds were secure. Wireless handhelds are easy to lose or steal because they're so portable, and they are penetrable by hackers and other outsiders. PDAs and smart phones, especially those used by senior executives, often store sensitive corporate data such as sales figures, social security numbers, customer names, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses.
Unauthorized users may be able to access internal corporate networks through these devices.
Downloading unauthorized data or messages may introduce disabling malware.
Tony Farah, Unilever's director of