What is the primary driver causing businesses to adopt enterprise mobility policies?

It's the same, imho, driver causing businesses to adopt social business (media) policies. It is an enterprise's natural instinct to control the public face of their brand. This is further compounded by legal and public relations "control risk/message" philosophies.

I'm going to try to illustrate my thoughts here with world history (and expecting rebuttal/critique).

Look at the result of repressive regimes like Hitler's Germany or Mubarak's Egypt. Both succeeded at massive control of community - for awhile. Eventually those authoritarian systems fell apart.

Now look at the USA in the 1800s. We were wild; unbridled with enthusiasm, robust freedom of movement and a sense of expansionist destiny. Society today, has jumped into the wild west of digital communications. Just as fortunes were made in the 1800s by robust unbridled enthusiasm, I posit that those enterprises that embrace less restrictive mobility (and social media) policies, will reap benefits greater than those enterprises that choose a more restrictive path.

The proliferation of internet enabled devices such as Iphones, Ipads, Smart Phones, Tablets and other internet aware devices are in my opinion the primary driving force behind enabling a mobile enterprise. Surveys show that an employee’s personal IT devices are more functional than the equipment provided by their employers. Users want to be able to be connected 24 – 7 and will use their own devices to do so even at work. IT departments and organizations need to be mindful of this trend and create policies and procedures to deal with the inevitable situations that will arise when users bring their own internet ready devices to work.

There is some good content in this Rethink video by Paul Barron - touching on restrictive vs open policies in organizational social media.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tVGWKfyTWg
There Are CEOs That Should Not Tweet

The primary driver causing businesses to adopt Enterprise Mobility Policies is the need to meet the consumerization of IT head-on while trying to protect the corporation’s assets. In today’s business world employees are demanding access from their smart devices (phones and tablets) to their corporate data in order to be able to work at anytime from anywhere. They have discovered that their new smart device has given them the ability to catch up/get ahead with their work while they are not actually in the office. This is happening from the CEO’s office on downwards. They don’t want to carry a bulky laptop when they already have an iDevice from home that can do many of the same things.

Businesses find themselves having to offer this access up while at the same time protecting their assets. They do this through creating Enterprise Mobility Policies that are designed to allow the employee to work efficiently while hopefully protecting their data. These policies range from what software is required to get access (for example Good Mobile Messenger), to the fact that the user must report a stolen or missing phone immediately. They may define the allowable software, the prohibited software, whether the device must be password protected or even encrypted.

As the enterprise climate continues its march toward Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) they will need to change the way they currently approach security and asset protection to better meet the needs of their business. This will involve spending less time looking at the device the user has and more time on protecting the actual data bot at rest and in transit (as it moves to the device).