In Canada more than 32 million people use mobile devices – roughly 85% of the population. By 2025, that number is expected to grow to 88%. Nearly 3-in-4 Canadians spend at least 3 to 4 hours online each day with 48% surfing the web using mobile devices including mobile phones and tablets. These numbers alone point to the imperative for businesses to implement an MDM policy.
The numbers cannot be denied – the world has gone online, and we’re on the move with mobile devices, using them for personal needs, like social media, gaming but also for the workplace. Businesses cannot ignore the benefits and realities of mobility in the workplace. Employees are not only using smartphones and tablets for browsing online, but they’re also using these devices to access corporate emails, documents, and applications.
Mobility brings many benefits to the workplace, enhancing employee productivity by allowing employees to work anywhere and anytime. Although, with this enhanced productivity comes the threat of reduced security and greater corporate responsibility, which is where mobile device management (MDM) comes in. Here are six reasons your business needs MDM:
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1. ENHANCED SECURITY
MDM keeps your business data protected and ensures your company retains control over confidential information. If a mobile device is lost or stolen, MDM can remotely lock and wipe all data. Remote locking and wiping capabilities enable companies to keep devices and data secure.
With MDM, your business gains central control over policies, applications, and additional functions. MDM can block unsafe websites and material from employees. This keeps corporate data and applications safe from the threat of malware and data breaches.
Containerization is a crucial feature in securing corporate information for a mobile workforce. With containerization, corporate data and applications are isolated from employee data. Also known as “sandboxing,” this feature prevents mobile-based attacks (such as through text or applications), risky user activity, and even simple accidents from interacting with specific applications with sensitive corporate information.
2. REDUCE COSTS
MDM enables your business to embrace Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) in the workplace to save on employee device costs. Removing this hefty cost from your environment reduces operating costs and frees up funds for the core of your business.
Wiping and containerization capabilities reduce and contain the negative impact of unsafe website visits and infected downloads. These security settings save your company the hefty cost, inconvenience, and potential reputation loss associated with malware and data breaches. Another benefit of MDM is it allows your business to keep track of employee mobile usage. Tracking software notifies administrators and can even block costly behaviors such as data and minute overages.
The Digital Privacy Act (Bill S-4) passed in 2015, making corporate reporting mandatory on personal information breaches. If an organization knowingly violates this notification requirement, the organization is liable for a fine of up to $100,000.
With updates to Bill S-4 in 2015, the Canadian Commissioner has the right and power to make reported security breaches public. If your organization has a personal information breach and the reported incident becomes public, there could be serious damage to your hard-earned corporate reputation and lost business opportunity.
With MDM, your organization doesn’t have to face either of these undesirable situations – no reporting, fines or public announcements necessary. MDM can enable organizations to avoid hefty fines and potential business and reputation loss with data wiping and containerization.
3. GAIN EFFICIENCY
Because MDM software is centrally managed, it reduces the time and resources spent on IT administration. The software can install, update, and remove applications, policies, and settings from one management dashboard. This makes it easy to ensure consistent mobile experiences for incoming employees, keep security settings up to date with current staff, and remove access for devices no longer in use.
MDM provides asset management tracking, so your business can easily identify which employee has which mobile device. The software enables your IT team to provide updates and replacements to your workforce’s mobile devices as required. MDM’s central management and asset tracking feature greatly reduces the amount of time and resources required by IT departments to manage mobile devices.
4. MEET COMPLIANCE STANDARDS
Depending on your industry, businesses must legally adhere to specific standards and regulations related to data protection. Compliance concerns are paramount for businesses that deal with sensitive client or financial information. For example, private medical or financial information is often needed for multiple clients in the medical or accounting industries. You can easily adhere to compliance regulations through data management and password protection with MDM.
5. EASILY TRACK INVENTORY
Depending on the size of your business, you may have multiple mobile devices per employee, and these devices are used across many teams of employees. Therefore, it may be overwhelming to track and manage these devices. Device inventory management allows you to track all devices used across your business, including being aware of both the physical hardware state of the device and the software’s health.
With inventory management, you can monitor usage and detect potential issues before they arise. Inventory management will ensure that your team’s devices are all up to date and can be easily controlled.
6. CONTROL APPLICATION USAGE
Application management helps to streamline setup and onboarding processes when adding new devices to your network. You can easily set up devices with the necessary applications for your team. Still, also, you can prohibit and control the application allowed on these devices to ensure they are being used correctly and to prevent accidental, malicious downloads.
If your company hasn’t implemented MDM, your organization is in jeopardy. Without MDM, the chance of corporate data breach lost client information, and damage to your corporate reputation is high. MDM removes risk from your organization and brings cost savings and efficiencies.
SysGen provides mobile device management services for Calgary, Edmonton, Red Deer, Vernon, and Kelowna-based businesses. Reach out to our team to learn more about MDM.
