How To Include Mobile Device Management In Your IT Strategy

Mobile device management (MDM), or enterprise mobility management, refers to a system designed to ensure that employees are handling their devices and company data appropriately and securely.

With more businesses turning to a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) approach, having an MDM strategy is crucial if they want to balance productivity, portability, and security.

Business owners and IT managers should ensure that their MDM policies are built around the constraints and requirements of their overall IT strategy. MDM and IT strategies should go hand-in-hand, instead of conflicting with each other. 

Here are some of the ways to integrate MDM into your IT strategy:

1. Identify Business Requirements And Goals

Your MDM strategy should align with a business’s long-term goals. When developing your company’s MDM strategy, ask yourself the following:

• How much control do you want your employees to have? This would determine which policy to implement—whether it’s BYOD, corporate-owned, personally-enabled (COPE), choose your own device (CYOD), or corporate-owned business only (COBO).
• How will mobile devices be used within the work environment both in the short- and long-term?
• What do you want your MDM strategy to achieve? Do you want greater accessibility, security, both, or something else entirely?

Apart from aligning with the company’s goals, your MDM strategy should also meet the IT capabilities of your business. Before deploying any of your plans and policies, take the time to assess your existing regulatory and security network, monitoring and reporting capabilities, and the licensing terms of the vendor’s devices and services. From there, you can then build more agile methods to support new developments and changing user needs.

2. Consider Hiring An IT Company

Does your existing Winnipeg team have the time, resources, and capabilities to stay on top of the constantly-changing mobile technology landscape? If they don’t, it might be best to hire an IT company in Winnipeg that can help with designing and implementing the right MDM solution for your business needs. An IT company can help with the following:

• Mitigate risks and improve security
• Monitor usage and revoke access to personal apps if they’re within the office premises or while they’re accessing sensitive business informative
• Disconnect or lock down devices that have been reported as missing or stolen
• Configure and assign policies for each device
• Create an enterprise app store where employees can download, install, and access corporate-approved software and applications

Just make sure that you’re choosing the right team for the job. Choose a local company because with MDM, it’s crucial to have a team that work with you directly. Offshore or out-of-state companies will have a tough time giving you the level of quality service your business deserves.

3. Establish Inclusive Security Solutions

Security is at the core of any IT or MDM strategy. Make sure that your MDM policies employ a comprehensive security solution that protects all end points against potential threats. Here are some examples to consider:

• Encrypt and secure any cloud-based data
• Possible threats across all devices have to be monitored and kept at bay
• Two-factor identity access management
• Use tools with enhanced-identity features that can restrict access to company data or resources depending on the network that the employee is using
• Consider incorporating containment technologies to separate corporate data and apps from personal use of the device

Security risks are critical roadblocks when integrating your MDM policies with your IT strategy. Identify and plug any security loopholes to insulate your business against vulnerabilities. Design and implement robust policies and regulations to ensure all corporate data and devices are completely protected.

4. Conduct Trial Runs

Before deploying your MDM policies, conduct testing in a range of contexts and perform trial runs. Here are some considerations to keep in mind during this phase:

• You may have different vendors supporting different teams or departments. Make sure that the user experience is consistent for all platforms.
• Consider having additional or critical security layers for unmanaged users like contractors or suppliers.
• Tests should have multiple cycles, sequences, and scenarios to ensure stability across the board.

Before rolling out your MDM strategy, testing is necessary to determine whether it can support the number of devices—or any future plans to scale up—and the sensitivity of your company data. Testing and trial runs will also help you find out whether you might require a more robust solution for your business. 

5. Adapt And Improve

One of the key features of an agile mobile device management policy is that it’s continuously assessed, optimized, and enhanced. If there are new technologies, tools, or trends, you should take note of them even if your current system is working well.

Takeaways

The right MDM strategy should align with the company’s long-term goals and existing IT infrastructure to ensure it adds value to the business and its employees. Without a structured and well-thought-out plan, your business can become more susceptible to risks and liabilities. The steps above should help you effectively incorporate MDM into your IT strategy.