Mobile devices like smartphones and tablets are ubiquitous in the day-to-day life of an average user. Since personal devices are indispensable and even irreplaceable in today’s generation, these smart devices have penetrated the modern-day workplaces too. Moreover, organizations today are embracing BYOD for it offers a flexible work environment, reduces infrastructure costs (device costs, maintenance costs etc.), and contributes towards increased employee productivity.
Nevertheless, the continued proliferation of mobile devices spawns concerns like corporate data protection, device management and synchronization with different platforms, varied OSs and varied IT configurations.
Mobile Device Management (MDM) is no longer a luxury for big enterprises, rather it is a necessity for large organizations and SMBs alike. According to a study by Kensington:
The cost of lost data is far greater than the cost of the lost device, and these facts bring to the forefront the need to incorporate an MDM solution to manage, monitor, and secure mobile devices for official use.
Small businesses are also at high risk of cyber-attacks and will not be able to withstand it if they do not employ effective control to mitigate these attacks. According to Smallbiztrends:
Businesses are primarily concerned about protecting intellectual property, data, financial information and private customer and employee from threats like:
A well-implemented security policy in combination with an effective mobile device management system can not only ensure device and data security but also offers a convenient end-user experience.
Let’s look at the global MDM market growth scenario mentioned in some previous reports:
According to Zion Research Analysis of 2016:
Future Marketing Insights has also published a report titled, “Mobile device management Market: Global Industry Analysis 2013 – 2017 and Opportunity Assessment 2018 – 2028”, which predicts:
In another report by MarketsandMarkets, the MDM market is set to grow from USD 2.81 Billion to USD 7.86 Billion by 2023, at CAGR 22.8%.
In the penultimate years of the last decade, the business world was dominated by Blackberry devices. Mobile Device Management came into the picture to access and control employee devices, which were typically funded by the workplace. MDM became a necessity when the popularity of Android and iOS-based smartphones soared, and employees preferred using a single device for personal and business purposes. Gradually, enterprises started embracing BYOD culture to accommodate employee devices for flexibility and productivity.
MDM thus became the foundation of secure mobility, which provided features like:
The concept of device security has now evolved to manage, control, and secure heterogeneous devices like printers, scanners, smart wearables, digital displays, kiosks, etc. on a unified platform, termed as Unified Endpoint Management.
The mobile landscape not only focuses on device mobility but also provides capabilities like accessing corporate applications and data from remote locations, which brings into picture solutions like content management, application management, identity, and access management, configuration management, remote troubleshooting etc. Enterprise Mobility Management encapsulates MDM and above-listed solutions to provide a secure container for enterprise assets.
Also Read: EMM Vs MDM: How Will you Differentiate?
As new threats and risks raise their head, MDM developers will continue to innovate and address these challenges:
Enterprise Mobility is nowhere near complete, and as organizations continue to mobilize their workforce, MDM solutions will have to keep pace and adapt to the dynamics of the mobile ecosystem.
Scalefusion as a complete MDM solution ensures that organizations can seamlessly manage, secure and monitor all their mobile devices and endpoints from a centralized dashboard powered with contextual communication and other robust features to drive an absolute IT-device convergence.
Vandita is a passionate writer and IT enthusiast. By profession, she is a Computer Lecturer at the University of Delhi and has previously worked as a Software Engineer with Aricent Technologies.