In this era of economic uncertainty, global competition, business transformation, and Internet-based e-commerce, resilience has become a hallmark of successful companies.

Mobility is a key component of business resilience. By giving employees the tools and technology to work anywhere, at anytime, companies can take advantage of new ways of doing business with fewer constraints based on location.

Mobility is an especially important asset for small companies. By freeing their workforce from the constraints of an office, smaller organizations can:

• Save money on expensive office facilities.
• Use a smaller workforce more flexibly and strategically.
• Reach and service more customers.

In the past, however, concerns over security and manageability overshadowed the benefits of mobility.

Smaller organizations had to consider the additional time and cost associated with providing IT support to employees on the move. Mobile employees often felt out of sync with the rest of the company. Companies worried, with good cause, about the possibility that providing mobile workers with remote network access would inadvertently provide hackers with a "back door" entry to corporate information and other resources.

But times have changed. Still, here is what mobile workers need to connect securely from remote locations.

1. VPNs for secure connections

VPNs have become increasingly important because they enable companies to create temporary, secure communications channels across the public Internet so that mobile workers can connect to the corporate local-area network just as though they were locally attached. Until VPN technology became widely available, companies could only guarantee secure remote communications by building dedicated private wide-area networks (WANs), an option that is completely impractical for supporting a mobile workforce.

With a secure VPN connection, a mobile worker can connect securely to the office network at broadband speeds, whether traveling through an airport with a wireless laptop or after hours in a hotel room with a wired connection.

2. Uninterrupted access to services, even on the road

With the increased popularity of mobile computing, service providers, vendors, and the travel industry itself have been working to provide uninterrupted access to the services that workers need to continue being productive while on the road.

Today, business travelers can access a nationwide network of pretested, secure public access "hotspots" where they can connect securely and efficiently to do their work with the convenience of an Ethernet-speed broadband connection. Broadband connectivity is critical because today's business applications are optimized for high-speed transmission. Consider, for instance, the difficulty of downloading a large file over a dial-up connection in an airport. Performance and security are equally important in mobile networking.

3. Ways to find hotspots and wired connectivity

One way to identify hotspots is to use an online tool, such as the Cisco Hotspot Locator Tool , to find airports, hotels, restaurants and convention centers that offer wired and wireless Internet connectivity and secure VPN access.

One complication to be aware of: Using handheld devices to access corporate Web servers requires reformatting the content designed for desktop-sized displays to a form factor that works for small displays. This transformation is called "markup language translation," and requires a transformation engine that front-ends a company's Web servers.