Sainsbury's provides staff with access to corporate data on personal devices

150,000 UK staff will be able to access corporate email and other data securely on mobile devices

Food retail giant Sainsbury's is adopting Good Technology's mobile enterprise software to enable store managers to access corporate email and other business information on the shop floor.

The Good for Enterprise technology will allow Sainsbury's 150,000 UK staff to access corporate data on personal devices.

"Access to the latest market data is a competitive differentiator in our space. Good Technology provides us with the ability to reach our colleagues in a secure way on their mobile device of choice," said Sainsbury's IT director Rob Fraser.

"Meeting the needs of our customers is no longer going to happen just from a remote office," he said.

The Good for Enterprise software is hosted on a Sainsbury's server, explained Andrew Jacques, general manager of Good Technology UK.

Employees download the Good for Enterprise app and are sent a secure PIN code.

"This takes 30 seconds to a minute and gives the employee access to their email, corporate calendar and the ability to browse their corporate intranet and get access to corporate documents," he said.

"Good for Enterprise separates corporate information from personal information that sits on the device. Within that secure container there is an email client, calendar client and a secure browser for intranet access."

Jacques said that this first phase of implementation aims to improve productivity.

"In a typical store there is maybe one computer for the store manager to access corporate email. The solution allows store managers to stay on the shop floor and stay connected to headquarters by accessing their email on their personal device," he said.

Jacques said that the next phase is to build applications on top of the existing architecture.

"The next stage is to build applications that deal with stock control and the supply chain," he said.

A manager could use a stock control application to check stock levels from the shop floor, for example.