Enterprise Mobility Management: Everything Explained

Mobile phones have completely changed the way we used to work, from shopping to doing business, they come really handy in every aspect of our lives. Increased usage of mobile phones in the workplace has made it difficult for officials to manage these devices. To maintain the balance between these handheld devices and work, enterprise mobility came in between that has provided the ability to work on-site and off-site. This trend is growing every day as a digitally active workforce demands enterprise mobility at a wider level. Technologies have enabled remote work operations and most of the organizations are adopting this benefit of enterprise mobility to stay ahead in the competition. 

In this pandemic, where few organizations that did not have a proper business continuity plan were forced to shut down their operations, few tech companies have responded by offering remote work operations for their employees. These organizations are therefore expected to maximize the potential of their enterprise mobility initiatives. Also, BYOD is not the only benefit of enterprise mobility, there are many others too like:

• Increase in workforce productivity
• Save on resources 
• Bridges the IT talent gap 

Though these mobile devices offer several benefits, maintaining and managing them altogether is a huge challenge for the organizations these days, and this is where the need for enterprise mobility management arises.

Also Read: IT Consulting Experts Share the Must Have Business Continuity Plan Checklist

Today, in this article we are going to talk about enterprise mobility management, its components and various other things which will help you in making it understand in a much better way. 

What is Enterprise Mobility Management?

Enterprise Mobility Management is nothing but a set of tools and technologies that helps organizations in protecting and maintaining the data in mobile devices for routine business operations. It focuses on minimizing the challenges that businesses face with BYOD or handling remote devices. 

These days, where most businesses are working remotely, the demand for enterprise mobility services are constantly increasing. Instead of restricting mobile devices in the workplace, EMM helps organizations to allow device flexibility to the users. Data protection, app management, threat management, and the management of handheld devices is what enterprise mobility management helps with. In short, enterprise mobility management serves as a glue to connect your mobile devices to the IT environment and keep all the data safe and secured.

As per the reports shared by Statista,” The global revenues for Enterprise mobility management (EMM) have accelerated since 2017. In 2017, the enterprise mobility management market is predicted to generate revenues of 1.8 billion U.S. dollars, but are estimated to go approx. 3.38 billion US dollars by the end of 2021.

Components of Enterprise Mobility Management

Mobile Device Management (MDM)

MDM is a software that works on the management of handheld devices like mobile, laptop or tablets. It includes everything from what is stored in the device, which app is secure for the device to locate the device while stolen or lost. MDM market is expected to rise at a CAGR of 18% in 2021. Mobile Device Management involves the installation of unique profiles into mobile devices that remotely manages the mobile and handheld device lifecycle and there are many mobile app development companies in the market that are working on making this possible. 

Mobile Application Management (MAM)

It helps in managing the applications, updates existing apps, and even controlling the push notifications sent by apps remotely. Work-related apps are controlled with the help of MAM at workplaces. It also helps with the security policies and safeguards certain information on the app without having to wipe the devices. Thus, it doesn’t lock-down the device as whole but helps in lockdown a few of the apps which have sensitive data.

Mobile Identity Management (MIM)

Mobile Identity Management is all about enabling enterprises to authenticate the users' identity before approving access to trusted devices. It also improves the end-user experience by providing credentials for accessing approved apps and to avoid the hassle of managing multiple id/ passwords. Identity management is essential to authentication, encryption, and user activity policy. More and more companies are reaching out to IT consulting firms and opting for MIM.

Mobile Information management (MIM)

MIM is integrated with either MAM or MDM and thus helps in syncing data between devices by using the internet as an app or device management depends on the tools in the cloud. There are many big giants that are offering public services for MIM like Google, DropBox, and Microsoft.

Mobile Content Management (MCM)

Mobile Content Management is used to control the data access on mobile devices and thus keep a check on how the content is accessed and what type of content is pushed. Hence, the fundamental roles of MCM are content security, content access, content push, and file-level protection. Collaboration is important as employees are working from different locations, hence mobile content management helps by enabling access to email, documents, etc. while working from different locations.

Mobile Expense Management (MEM)

Managing all the expenses of an organization is a biggest challenge, which business owners these days face. Mobile Expense Management assists organizations with controlling costs and communication expenses. It helps provide insights to the organizations regarding storage and service usage. It assists in efficiently managing the ROI by properly planning the mobile communication costs.

Thus, EMM comprises the combination of the features of all these components altogether, and rather than finding a specific solution, enterprises can choose an Enterprise mobility management provider that covers all these bases. EMM comprises a wide range of solutions and has emerged its role as the means of securing corporate data. These days most organizations are adopting EMM to make their workforce management more agile and reduce employee workload and for this having a proper enterprise mobility strategy is a must.

Why You Need an Enterprise Mobility Management Solution

Boost productivity

The convenience to do the job from any place or at any time allows the employees for the completion of their job securely without the wastage of time. Proper management control lets the employees work remotely and thus boosts the productivity of the company. Hence, the time factor is not a restriction. As per the reports shared, there is a rise by 40% in the last 2 quarters with the help of mobile applications in Enterprise mobility solutions. 

Reduce operational cost

Enterprise mobility management helps with reduced cost as employees will be working from home and ultimately the cost of infrastructure diminishes. A centralized control system minimizes the cost and ensures this cost is allocated to the right business unit. Also, while employees are using their smartphones, there will be no spend on the training as the general layout and functionality of a smartphone are already known.

Mobile Device Endpoint Security

Cybersecurity is the most significant benefit of enterprise mobility management. EMM helps employees to deal with the mobility pitfalls like lost or stolen mobile devices. It helps your enterprise to make use of device locator services to track down the lost or stolen devices. It allows only authorized personnel to access corporate data to prevent any data breach. These tools help in sustainable growth by providing data loss prevention and mitigation.

Data Accuracy and Device Sharing

The easy device sharing helps in reporting timely and enhancing the customer experience by providing 24/7 assistance. Handheld devices like tablets, smartphones assist in real-time updates and in improving collaboration at the group level. Thus, this leads to accuracy in data and increases the productivity of the enterprises. Entrepreneurs are always in search of a proficient enterprise software development company that can create solutions like these for their organization.

Restricts third-party app downloads

A good enterprise mobility solution helps in restricting the download of third-party apps. If the security policies are not tight, the employees tend to download any random app which may lead to a leak of critical data information of the company. Thus, EMM helps in restricting the third-party app that is not vetted by the IT department.

Take Away

Enterprise Mobility management is evolving with a steep increase in the BYOD trend. Hence the organizations need to take the step ahead in deploying EMM solutions to secure data while providing their employees with the flexibility of using mobile devices in the workplace. Approx. 71% of organizations are moving towards enterprise mobility and are focused on developing customer-facing apps and there are many companies offering product engineering services, which helps these organizations in creating customized solutions per their business needs. No matter the size of the business, EMM supports the employees in accomplishing while on the go. Reduction in management costs, IT operation time saving, and increase in productivity, ultimately benefits the business with an average 150% return on investments. Lastly, if you haven’t geared up yet for EMM solutions, this is the time as this will help in keeping your upper hand in scaling the market ahead.