What is Mobile Device Management?
Mobile Device Management (MDM) is a platform that allows organizations to deploy, secure, monitor, integrate and manage a variety of mobile devices including tablets, laptops, and IoT devices in the workplace from a central admin console.
MDM enables IT administrators to quickly address the challenges associated with mobility by providing a simplified and efficient way to view, manage and secure all company and employee owned devices across the enterprise.
When selecting an MDM platform for your business, it’s important that you have a full set up of security and management tools for all devices, such as iOS, Android or Windows, macOS, Linux, IoT and more. This will allow IT administrators to easily manage and secure endpoints effectively and efficiently helping to streamline processes, increase productivity and reduce downtime.
Organizations that need to quickly push software updates, manage user settings, remotely clean and wipe devices, administer compliance standards and more will benefit from having an MDM strategy in place.
MDM is an important aspect of Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM). EMM includes mobile application, identify, and access management.
Whether you work in industries such as healthcare, transportation, logistics, retail, field services or more, having a full lifecycle security and management program to protect and secure mobile devices and
apps is crucial to the success of your business.
How does Mobile Device Management work?
The software works by installing an agent on each of the devices that need to be managed. Once the agent is installed on the end devices, it allows the centralized server to manage and communicate with the endpoints remotely.
Once configured, this centralized server allows the administrator to enforce the corporate security policies, push out updates, and push new applications to enable more user productivity across all the managed devices.
A few examples of some of the policies that can be enforced are minimum password complexity requirements and remote erase functionalities in an event that a device is lost.
The software also provides a monitoring dashboard where all devices can be tracked for compliance or compromise. This helps administrators keep track of all the different versions of the applications and
physical OSs that are running in the environment, which is a necessity to protect against software vulnerabilities.
Mobile device management sets up a secure sandbox that will isolate corporate applications from the end users’ applications to allow users to use bring-your-own-devices (BYOD) and still have the applications they want installed while maintaining the integrity of the corporate data.
How Do I Know If I Need to Implement a Mobile Device Management Solution?
With mobile security threats on the rise and with the increased compliance requirements from the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), every business should have a strategy in place to protect the integrity
of the company network and the data that it contains. Ask yourself these questions to see if an MDM solution is right for your business.
- Are your mobile devices owned by a company? Are these devices expensive and time-consuming to replace?
- Do you need to get devices configured and set up for your mobile workers ASAP, so they can hit the ground running?
- Do you need to prevent worker downtime when they have problems with their devices?
- Does your company depend on mobile apps to operate? Do you need to understand and manage who has what version of which app?
- Do you operate in a regulated industry such as GDPR or SOX, where any sensitive data on your worker’s devices must remain on the device?
- Does your company support BYOD that can potentially jeopardize data security and regulatory compliance?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, it’s imperative that you have an MDM solution implemented
to protect your company.
Download our eBook to learn more about the benefits of Mobile Device Management and the importance of aligning with the right partner to implement an MDM solution.