Mobile device management has been around for a while now. I remember first hearing about it roughly 5 years ago. At the time it was very much an emerging solution but these days most big businesses who provide mobiles to their employees will be deploying an MDM solution.
For those at the back who are not familiar with MDM, let me explain. Mobile Device Management enables a business to enforce their mobile phone policy. For example, let’s say you are giving out smartphones to your field sales team or remote engineers. Great, now they have access to their work email, online manuals and can even make a phone call! Good stuff but we don’t want them watching YouTube on their lunch break, exceeding the companies data usage and running up a big bill. MDM would allow you block YouTube, it wouldn’t even appear on the phone, or if you prefer you could just set a daily data limit on the phone if you wanted to ensure you stay within your network allowance. Or perhaps you are worried about company sensitive information ending up in the wrong hands? (in the event the phone is stolen, for example) You can just remotely wipe all the information on the phone. You can also set up the above rules subject to a time (say from 9-5), a location (for example a prison, car factory where no phones are permitted) or even if the phone is traveling over a certain speed – a useful feature for logistic companies and drivers using the phone when in charge of a vehicle.
Restricting applications is an attractive feature for businesses looking to enforce device polices
Let’s say you’ve bought your phones and chosen your MDM solution. Now you’ve now got to enrol your devices to the MDM suite. This can be admin heavy. Traditionally you would need each phone with you, each one switched on and ready to manually enrol each phone at a time. The point is, it takes time.
Manually enrolling MDM can be an admin heavy task
A ‘Zero touch’ enabled smartphone means all you need to do is register the IMEI with your chosen solution so when the phone switches on and connects to the internet for the first time the MDM policy gets deployed to the phone automatically. No need to have the phone with you saving you time to focus on the things that matter most.
Linkit Communications can supply, support and maintain MDM and Zero touch enable smartphones for you and your business. Get in touch at hello@linkitcommunications.com or call us on 01926 911291 for more information.
