Choosing the right EMM for your business

Mobility management is evolving. A few years ago companies wanted mobile device management (MDM) solutions to secure and manage devices. Then, as device capabilities grew, and mobile applications and content became more important, the focus expanded to enterprise mobility management (EMM).

Now with the arrival of IoT, the market is changing yet again. In a few years, we can expect to see billions of new, connected devices, “things” and endpoints. There may be dozens of new categories of endpoints, but they all need to be secured and managed from a single, unified mobility management solution.

An effective EMM gives your business critical control of your mobile computing assets, whether it’s dozens, hundreds or thousands of devices, and provides the mobile workforce and IT administrators with exactly what they need to minimise downtime and increase worker productivity. Especially in this new reality, with more emphasis than ever on the mobile workforce.

Remote Management

Effective remote management ensures that your mobile devices can stay with the workforce, without unnecessary interruptions for returns to a service centre for updates.Remote management can be used for everything from remotely updating software, firmware and security patches through to taking remote control of the device to guide users on how to operate a specific application function, or even for device triage in the field. Analytics can be used to monitor the health of devices in the field. For example, checking device operational or battery status. Another advantage is the ability to asset track devices whether they are out on location or stored in the warehouse. You can also choose when the devices are updated with the latest applications to minimise interruptions of the workforce.

Fast deployment

Another essential element of a good EMM solution is the ability to deploy devices as quickly and seamlessly as possible. Your business has invested a lot in its new mobile computing devices and it will want to see them operational and delivering a return on that investment as fast as possible. An EMM can offer a zero-touch enrolment either using Autopilot from Microsoft or Zero Touch from Android, for example, to process streamlining the preparation and activation of the device in the business. This approach means minimal effort is required from IT administrators and users to get the device up and running. When a device first turns on and connects to the internet, via cellular or WiFi networks, it immediately checks if it has been assigned an enterprise configuration. If it has, the device pulls down the configuration details and proceeds to enrol according to the configuration instructions. What once took hours, can now be done in minutes.