Mobile device management, or MDM, is a growing necessity as business becomes more global and offices shrug off their traditional borders. Here’s why your start-up needs to invest in an MDM strategy now.
Control Your Early Start-Up Costs
Raising enough capital to keep your start-up afloat for its first several years is vital to its long-term success. How you spend that investment money on your company also influences its viability going forward.
An MDM strategy geared to allow your employees to store company data on their personal smartphones spares your business the cost of buying them new “work” phones. Your IT team can still check emails and data usage from your business exchange server without invading employee privacy. This move allows you to focus funds where the return on investment is better for the business revenue stream.
Keep Your Business Secrets Secure
Your start-up’s projects and trade secrets are all that separate it from the hundreds of other businesses looking to gain ground in your vertical. Controlling who can use that information before and after you bring your product to market is important to keep up your competitive edge. An effective MDM strategy, combined with an enterprise phone plan, like those offered by businessmobiles.co.uk, provides the security necessary to keep your data under company control.
Create a Tiered Device Management System
Mobile device management allows your business to assign security settings to mobile devices according to the risk level of data stored on them. This is the kind of flexibility any fledgling business needs. For example, with MDM C-level executives can have business-owned phones with full suites of apps and analytics reporting, while entry-level workers may use their own devices with company email.
This strategy compartmentalizes your data flow, differentiating management and other empowered workers from the rest of staff. This move also tightens the circle of responsibility in the event a data breach does occur. Your IT teams won’t need to comb through every phone in your workforce to figure out who downloaded that virus.
Delete Your Data Remotely
Leaked product prototypes can spell brand disaster; reporters and consumers can form opinions about your offerings before you’ve made improvements and develop a marketing campaign. An employee leaving their phone at a bar after work is the preamble to a breaking news story on Tech Crunch, just ask Apple.
With MDM, you can cut access to files and data stored on controlled devices from anywhere. A “selective wipe” also removes your proprietary info and applications. Additionally, there’s no risk of harming your employee’s personal phone apps or contacts. Your access only pertains to files installed by the MDM system.
Work From (Almost) Anywhere in the World
As more millennials enter the workforce, their expectations change everything from morning commutes to the shape of modern offices. More employees work remotely from home than ever before – 24 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Adding an MDM component to your business communication plan allows you to recruit talent from all over the country without worrying about geography. Armed with MDM, across the country is the new “just down the hall.” Employees can check email from nearly anywhere and collaborate with team members using company conferencing tools. This cuts down on office space requirements while your employees delete commuting costs from their budgets.
Create a Dynamic Workforce with Mobile Access
Your employees aren’t robots churned out from the same factory. Each team member brings a unique set of skills to your start-up, while you assign them to various projects based on those skills. Bringing a plan for mobile device management to your business gives you the ability to assign projects in real-time and give users access to account information as needed. This tactic encourages a dynamic workflow, where teams share data quickly and finish tasks faster. They won’t be waiting on one key member with all the permissions to distribute goals.
Devoting funds to MDM can mean the difference between success and failure for your start-up. If speed and efficiency is a priority for your business, do everything possible to make MDM a reality for your company.
Author Bio:
Jonathan Lister is a search marketing specialist working in SEO and content development at Majux Marketing. His work appears in a number of publications, including USA Today and The Houston Chronicle.
