Peer to Peer Magazine

20 PEER TO PEER: THE QUARTERLY MAGAZINE OF ILTA | SPRING 2016 BEST PRACTICES Navigating Through the MDM Soware Market Most MDM apps handle the diverse mobile landscape by providing granular visibility and controls, administered from the cloud server anywhere, anytime. Featuring custom security policies for individuals, groups, devices, context and location, these apps offer a flexible framework wherein administrators can configure MDM policies to meet organizational objectives while securing corporate assets. Policymakers need to be able to customize their MDM policies to conform to multiple user groups and manage custom- built profiles from one central location. Having an MDM soware that facilitates this granular level of security and control is vital to the success of the MDM program. Scalable No maer what MDM soware you choose, it needs to be scalable. Integrating an MDM app across your user base, then having to replace it the next fiscal year is a nightmare, both from an operations and financial perspective. Organizations need enterprise-grade MDM soware that grows as they grow. With most MDM apps, there's no limit on the number of mobile devices they can manage or users they can support. This provides great flexibility for the user base, most of whom will start with one device and build from there, and for most corporations that have ambitions of growing in size and number. Knowing that the MDM soware is scalable is a good selling point to the C-suite. Price/Cost Does it cost your organization more to support the mobile workforce with MDM soware or without it? I'm not talking about price; I'm talking about cost –– the cost of doing business. The MDM soware you choose has to make financial sense. It needs to be "profitable" in some way: » Decreased incidents of compromised data » Fewer loopholes in the network » Easier access to network resources on the go » More billable hours captured » Quicker response times » Higher client retention rates Deployment and Management Deploying MDM soware should not require a heavy human capital investment. The rollout might require some overtime hours and late nights, but the MDM soware should make everyone's job easier over the long-run. In particular, the requirements for the end user should be minimal. Outside of a few security prompts and basic configuration, everyone should be able to install the MDM app and access corporate assets with lile effort or technical knowledge. You want MDM soware that does most of the management work for you. This includes collecting information about the device, performing diagnostics on problem devices, automating alerts for compromised devices, pushing updates to the user base and more. Having MDM soware that does most of these mundane tasks reduces company overhead and allows your administrators to focus on more important things, such as revamping MDM policy to address recent security threats. Granular Rights and Controls It bears repeating: MDM is not one size fits all. Policies can vary depending on the device, operating system, user group and/or location. Organizations need agile, dynamic MDM soware with granular rights and controls to effectively manage their user base. Knowing that the MDM software is scalable is a good selling point to the C-suite.

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