Just a couple of years ago, remote working was considered taboo by several businesses worldwide. Organizations believed remote working employees would be highly distracted without a traditional office environment. Besides, setting up remote connections, providing remote access, and managing employees remotely were considered next to impossible.
But as we know, the Covid-19 pandemic transformed this notion when almost all businesses had to resort to remote working. Today, as we enter the so-called post-pandemic world, several businesses have embraced remote working permanently, while many others have adopted hybrid-working models. People have realized that remote working, unlike the traditional belief, does not decrease employee productivity but enhances it by manifolds.
Besides improved productivity, businesses have experienced several other benefits of remote work, such as access to a greater talent pool and reduced office space and infrastructure investments. But this journey from traditional office culture to remote working, although swift, has not been easy. Allowing employees to work remotely is easier said than done. Businesses must consider several aspects related to corporate data security and remote provisioning that can create significant consequences if not appropriately managed. This is where implementing the right RMM solutions play a vital role.
What is Remote Monitoring and Management Software (RMM)?
Remote Monitoring and Management tool (RMM) is a tool designed to help IT admins to streamline their organization-wide remote device management. IT admins of organizations or even Managed Service Providers (MSPs) who offer managed IT services to other businesses can benefit mainly from the RMM platform in terms of time and effort required to manage and provision many devices.
This tool perfectly solves the remote endpoint management related challenges businesses face when opting for remote or hybrid working. Rather than engaging in a time-consuming and labor-intensive process of managing multitudes of devices manually, the RMMs software helps IT admins automate routine tasks and push security policies on their remote fleets of devices without wasting time on frequent site visits.
Managing Remote Employee Devices and Endpoints: A Challenge?
Remote working has been a drastic change for both employers and employees. While the employees faced some challenges in adjusting to this new change, such as lack of employee engagement, inability to connect instantly with managers and colleagues, and blurred work-life boundaries, they eventually got accustomed to it. But employers, on the other hand, encountered more tremendous obstacles.
1. Increased Cyber Security Risks
An enterprise’s IT admin secures the office spaces with multiple layers of protection that help keep the corporate data and network safe. However, remote working allows employees to step out of this safe haven and work from any place of their choice, using public networks which are flooded with lurking cyber threats. Businesses must go the extra mile to put several security policies in place and constantly monitor compliance to ensure that their corporate data isn’t under attack by hackers or other malicious actors.
2. Cumbersome Remote Management
Managing many device configurations and set-ups is more straightforward when the entire workforce operates from defined office spaces. With employees working remotely, not only does the visibility of the workforce decrease, but it becomes cumbersome for IT admins to keep track of their inventory, manage devices and provision them with enterprise-specific policies.
3. Improper Communication & Engagement
A regular day in the traditional office culture involves employees meeting their colleagues, sharing a cup of coffee, discussing action items, having face-to-face meetings, and engaging in work and team activities. With remote working, businesses find it challenging to get their dispersed teams to communicate efficiently. Communication barriers lead to lowered productivity and greater employee disengagement.
4. Non-tech Savvy Employees
Although the corporate world relies heavily on digital devices and the latest technologies, earlier in the traditional office culture, not every corporate role required employees to handle digital devices regularly. With remote working, mobile devices have become the glue that holds the workforce together.
However, not all employees are tech-savvy to use these devices for their daily tasks. Some may even need frequent help with settings and device complications. Waiting for the company’s IT teams to reach out to the employees to help resolve device usage queries and issues can lead to a massive loss of time and productivity.
What Are the Benefits of RMM Software?
While RMM software is mostly leveraged by MSPs, it can also prove highly beneficial for a company’s in-house IT team. Let’s unlock 10 Business-Boosting Benefits with RMM!
1. Proactive Monitoring
The greatest challenge in enterprise mobility is to constantly check remotely dispersed employees. Simply providing employees with endpoints for work is not enough. It is crucial to keep these devices secure and maintain their best health.
RMM tool helps IT admins of organizations monitor the inventory-wide performance and uncover potential problems before the end-user or clients experience them. This kind of predictive analysis goes a long way in helping businesses keep their devices at optimum performance.
2. Faster Issue Resolution
Remote working has made it mandatory for all employees to use mobile devices for their daily work and interactions, even those whose regular jobs do not involve much use of technology, such as mine workers, construction workers, drivers, etc. Such employees are bound to face some technical queries or device issues.
With the RMM services, system administrators can reach out to their employees and help them quickly resolve their device errors with features such as Remote Cast & Control, Screen recordings, VoIP, etc. This saves IT time and effort in frequent on-site visits and prevents employees from facing extended device downtime.
3. Integration with ITSM
When your work environment is heavily dependent on various remote mobile and digital devices, there should be some technical glitches along the way. Modern-day RMM software helps you reach out to your remote employees but also helps you integrate the leading ITSM tools with the RMM solution to generate context-aware support tickets and manage issues more swiftly, straight from the RMM console.
4. Improved Cybersecurity
While remote working is appreciated and accepted by the world, enterprises would agree that deploying a remote work environment is not easy when securing their corporate information. Remote employees are exposed to various cyber risks regarding data compromisation, device protection, and network security threats. With Remote monitoring and management, your business’s IT admins can roll out extensive security policies to protect your employees’ devices, their corporate data, and the networks they connect, leaving no room for accidental breaches.
5. Automated Compliance Alerts
RMM enables IT admins to protect corporate assets and information with security policies and frequent compliance checks. IT admins can schedule compliance alerts in case of any enterprise policy is overpassed. Automated alerts can be configured for various incidents, such as data overuse, Geofence breaches, unauthorized SIM swaps, and other compliance violations. This way, keeping track of the usage and security incidents and the quick action to be taken against these instances becomes manageable.
6. Reports & Analytics
Another advantage that modern-day Remote monitoring and management present is the extensive organization-wide inventory reports and overviews. IT admins can utilize tools to track and examine device usage, employee behavior, and much more from the comprehensive reports generated by the RMM for various factors such as device unlock attempts, battery percentage, location reports, other device vitals and screen time data to ensure productive work hours. This helps IT admins examine device usage patterns and enables wider traceability of issues.
7. Location Tracking
You can constantly be aware of your employees’ whereabouts with the help of the location monitoring capabilities of the RMM software. Some of the latest RMM tools allow you to monitor your employees’ real-time remote locations and configure area-based Geofences to keep a close eye on your workforce. This feature is handy for businesses with a mobile workforce, such as logistics, mining, construction, etc.
8. Limit User Access to Devices
Good RMM software help MSPs and IT admins of businesses to enable secure remote access to their employees. Allowing employees to work remotely is a challenging task in terms of corporate data security. RMM tools provide extensive configurations that only authorized users can access the devices and their resources. Configuring passcode policies, encrypting corporate data with security keys, and enabling role-based access are some of the many features that can be leveraged by the company’s IT admins.
9. IT Automation
Remote working has led to a surge in device management and cloud-based mobile applications. Hackers have evolved with time and have found the latest ways to detect app and system vulnerabilities to infect corporate devices and networks with malware. The solution to this grave problem is simple but tedious to execute. The patch management function helps with routine system and app updates, patch fixes, and timely repairs to prevent malware from breaking into corporate systems.
RMM features enable IT admins to automate these routine maintenance tasks of timely OS and app updates, ensuring maximum cyber security and relieving the IT teams from redundant efforts.
10. Centralized Management
The core purpose of RMM software is to help MSPs and IT admins of companies and simplify the remote management of devices. A single centralized dashboard that offers such diverse functionalities can help IT admins save time from toggling between various tools and help businesses save costs on purchasing multiple solutions. A single solution caters to monitoring clients’ endpoints, security, and management needs.
Closing Lines
Amidst the chaos that the pandemic-driven remote working has created, RMM solutions bring a sense of relief to all businesses looking for streamlined remote management.
Scalefusion MDM is a device and endpoint management solution trusted by 8000+ businesses worldwide and offers extensive RMM capabilities straight off a simple and intuitive dashboard.
