According to Gartner, 40% of U.S. employees of big enterprise companies are using personally-owned devices for work. While having a mobile workforce is nothing new to the business, the technology supporting that mobile workforce has to become a part of the enterprise in order to provide many benefits that it has to offer. In 2010, Blackberry had a 43% share in U.S. smartphone market. Blackberry was very popular in the business world and the need for mobile device management (MDM) appeared. MDM was created to give full access and control to manage mobile devices of employees. With quick adoption of Android and iPhone smartphones, employees embraced the idea of carrying just one phone which could be easily switched from work to personal use, and other way around.
As bring your own device (BYOD) trend continued to expand across modern enterprise, mobile application management (MAM) was created. MAM’s purpose was to limit management and control of certain business applications. MAM seemed like a perfect compromise between employers and employees, but its lack of support for the majority of native applications from app-store made the experience a little rocky. Finally, enterprise mobility management (EMM) was created from the combination of MDM and MAM solutions in order to keep enterprise data secure.
Employees are increasingly willing to bear the cost of their own mobile devices. According to a recent Cisco report, net cost savings from employee-owned devices will exceed 20 percent. This shift is allowing companies to reduce the impact of traditional IT and embrace the model that supports and meets the needs of the users.
Why is MDM Integral to Successful Mobility Adoption?
The increase of workplace accessibility must be in balance with off-premise security in order to enable the delivery of mobile applications. According to Gartner, these are the top three benefits and drawbacks of BYOD trend:
- 85% increase in employee satisfaction
- 74% access expansion to mobile apps
- 62% better user productivity
As the BYOD evolves, so do the solutions needed to manage enterprise BYOD. MDM and EMM have appeared as the more advanced app and content management solutions were required.
MDM allows corporations to provide employees with the access sensitive company data using a device of their choice while these devices are remotely managed and with minimum disruption of the employees’ schedules. Below are the top benefits of MDM implementation:
- Effective enterprise mobility
- Improved security
- Distribution of mandatory applications based on user roles
- Detection and mitigation of security risks
- Ability to track download and usage statistics
The bottom line is that MDM software is necessary for the companies that wish to increase productivity and provide a high level of security.
It is reasonable to expect the expansion of the security with MDM and EMM. With many benefits it has to offer, it is only a matter of time before mobile device management, enterprise mobility management, and even cyber security intelligence all evolve under one, unified, management. Want to know more? Post your questions in the comments and we’ll be glad to answer.
