3 big reasons your business needs Mobile Device Management for its mobile workforce

This sponsored post is produced in association with Bushel.

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It hasn’t taken long for smartphones and tablets to go from being helpful devices for enterprise companies to being essential utilities that businesses of all sizes need to integrate into their toolbox. However, this evolution often lacks the level of coordination and oversight companies need to adequately maintain growing device deployments — especially if the company is small enough to operate without a structured IT department.

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That’s the basis for a burgeoning software category called Mobile Device Management (MDM), which is developed to handle just this kind of situation. It’s a relatively new segment — only a few years old — but the MDM category already has several service/software companies. These providers are quickly offering sophisticated solutions for companies to keep track of and maintain their mobile device usage.

Businesses need a solution to help them manage deployed devices so they can stay on top of their mobile infrastructure. Bushel, one solution in this space, provides detailed oversight of a company’s Apple devices and computers but is simple to use.

If you’re still skeptical that your company needs to implement yet another solution, here are three critical spots where an MDM solution like Bushel can help you immediately and immensely:

1. Security

There are a number of ways that MDM solutions enable you to keep your devices and data more secure. If a device is lost or stolen, MDM enables you to do a remote device lock or data wipe, so having the device fall into someone else’s hands won’t put your business at further risk.

Even when employees have possession of devices, Bushel provides more security by protecting company data on iOS, limiting how your apps and email share documents and attachments. This means that company documents can only be accessed by the email account or apps that Bushel deployed, keeping your sensitive work data secure.

2. Ease of use

 When a desktop PC or laptop is issued to a new employee, the IT department likely has a consistent install that it puts on its computers, so that every employee has the same software, configuration, and connectivity. Consistency is important in growing deployments. However, a lot of companies don’t take the same steps with phones and tablets, so MDM comes in handy to enable companies to offer the same level of consistency for the entire staff

MDM keeps track of who has each device and what they have configured on it. More importantly, it provides a company with beneficial inventory control that includes a detailed status of its mobile assets in real time. Inventory management is a core feature of MDM tools and helps keep tabs on the workforce’s device usage.

3. Cost reduction

In a less-structured scenario, employees may purchase, download, and install apps as they need them, and in some cases, companies might have multiple employees sharing a single Apple ID for app purchases. However, if one employee leaves, apps and their licenses often leave with them. MDM not only enables you to deploy software to a device, but if you lose an employee, licenses that the former employee used can be revoked and re-allocated to a new employee. That means you won’t have to purchase the app licenses all over again, to the benefit of your budget.

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For instance, if your company has five people sharing an Apple ID for app purchases across all of their devices (not recommended), losing one of those staffers can wreak havoc; the departed employee can lock up the others’ apps or wipe out their data, stopping your business in its tracks. MDM offers centralized management allowing you to manage your apps, data, and policies while everyone is using their own personal Apple ID. A potential trouble spot can be walled off from the rest of your staff before it becomes an issue, let alone a showstopper.

The concept of working for a company these days doesn’t always mean having your employees behind a desk or in a cubicle at the office, so companies in 2016 should have a plan for remote workers, telecommuting, and staff that may need to work from the road. While the old saying “out of sight, out of mind” may apply in a lot of these cases, with a mobile device management solution like Bushel in place, having your workers and provided devices out of sight doesn’t mean they have to be out of mind.

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