Mobile-based and Mobile-first, enterprises are reeling under the pressure of consumers who want layers and layers of security around their data while the employees want better flexibility in the work environment to increase their productivity. Enterprises find it particularly difficult to manage a pool of devices for a single employee and altogether many enterprises have even given-up the idea of mobile device management. The challenge for the enterprise is to find a particular solution that can reduce security risks and not curb the flexibility of mobility. The difference between the mobile management policy and technology will decide, whether the enterprise wants to develop a comprehensive methodology to control the mobile devices or to have a string of unmanaged devices. Enterprises need to be cautious under such situations that can cause monetary loss and even kill employee morale. The objective of Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) emerged as a strategy that many enterprises employed to bring in flexibility but it also emerged as a key problem. Many enterprises gave unrepented access to business information and data. it resulted in many types of data espionage and unauthorized data transfers. The need for control over the enterprise’s data and the network access is what has to be satisfied by the application management solutions. But the restrictive access needs to channelized according to your business requirements and also looking toward the environment flexibility. So IT admins started using third-party applications based on the requirements and security policies. Whether it’s MDM, MAM, EMM or UEM that will suit the requirements will depend on their offerings.
1. Mobile Device Management (MDM)
MDM allows the enterprises to remotely enroll the device and then track it. The control management and securing of the device through a specific application can affect the business data. The IT team can manage the control over the device related to installs of enterprise applications such as email or voice messenger. The team can also configure Wi-Fi access and enforce the security on the device that includes control over the data if the device is stolen or lost. However, this resulted in a more complicated problem the employees don’t want their personal data to be deleted. It’s estimated that around 30 percent of the current workforce actually use a personal device for work-related activities and almost all of them have some amount of personal data on the device. Mobile device management (MDM) can be more evasive and controlling than expected. Enterprises that provides own device for mobility solutions can deploy MDM but it might lead to uncompromising situations.
2. Mobile Application Management (MAM)
If the enterprises want to provide application and data control towards the devices then they can go in for Mobile Application Management (MAM). It helps the enterprises control the only required data instead of complete data and also controls the business applications. Corporate email is one of the most frequently used forms of MAM. The other uses of MAM are control over the menu of applications or even access to certain features that can be work fine-tuned. MAM allows IT teams the ability to control access to business applications, without harming the personal data. So if an employee leaves the organization the enterprises can delete the required data and applications from any type of device whether it’s a smartphone, laptop or tablet. MAM allows the enterprises to update patches and applications making it easier to address the security threats.
3. Unified Endpoint Management (UEM)
Unified Endpoint Management allows the enterprise to manage any devices including the IoT devices remotely. UEM can manage, control and secure the devices based on the requirements. Though UEM hasn’t been completely utilized by the enterprises to protect critical data and hardware lockdown in case of the device being stolen. UEM supports the broadest set of devices and application even catering to the personal computers located remotely. UEM providers are also innovating to give a full sense of features and have the broadest set of devices that can be supported using a single application. Providers such as for as VM ware, Mobilelron, Blackberry, and many others have added the feature to secure and manage the endpoint devices. UEM is a single management tool to control all different types of applications, devices, and hardware.
4. Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM)
Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) is one of the most frequently used mobile management solution that enables enterprises to secure devices and applications. Using a simple dashboard to control all devices and applications that can be assessed using the application; it will also help in assisting the enterprises to integrate different solutions for securing the device. EMM is a combined effort of MAM and MDM solution for mobile devices; however, there is a number of the solution in the UEM. Currently, many of the enterprises are investing in developing EMM rather than a complete UEM because the requirement usually ranges between controlling the device to amount of shared enterprise data. Before enterprises start thinking about developing software to control all the devices let’s look at some of the stats, the survey was conducted for the countries like U.S., U.K, and Australia.
1. Nearly 80 percent of the current workforce considers their Personal Computers (PCs) to be their main work-related device. This includes desktops and laptops.
2. Nearly 12 percent of the workforce has a corporate-issued tablet.
3. The smartphone being a major part currently only 22 percent of the smartphones are corporate-issued.
4. Out of every three people, two of them use their personal devices for professional work related activities.
The current application management solutions don’t solve the constant threats the devices face. With increased demand for mobility and security solutions providers are constantly trying to innovate the technology used in the current application management solutions. Though many enterprises still are reluctant to add different mobile devices that can be used as the point of breaching the security many of the industry leaders said that it may not continue for long. It was predicted that the total revenue for EMM will jump from $6.92 billion to $16.29 billion by 2021. The need for mobility and security will be driving the demand for App Management Solutions.
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