Best Mobile Device Management (MDM) Software for Enterprise Businesses

Technological progress and digital transformation have forced mobility to the forefront of business tech. Mobile devices like smartphones and tablets are important, commonplace assets, often considered as or more important than a laptop or desktop computer in certain roles. But, mobility devices are less likely to be company-issued now, as nearly all employees have their own smartphones; these are considered BYOD or bring your own device. BYOD makes managing what mobile business applications are utilized—and how they’re secured—a challenging task.

Mobile device management (MDM) solutions help businesses address the difficulties of managing mobile endpoints across a business. Employing device detection and integration, policy adherence rules, application deployment, and a variety of other features, companies can manage the mobile devices and applications needed to run their business. They can also help secure relevant corporate data running through these devices, giving businesses the ability to shut off corporate data flow through a device, or even remotely locking or wiping the device itself.

Key Benefits of Mobile Device Management (MDM) Software

• Control over all corporate mobile devices
• Control over business applications and data on employee BYOD mobile devices
• Application and security uniformity from mobile business device to device
• Highly scalable business mobile endpoint requirements
• Support data-driven decision making around a company’s mobile devices

Internal IT teams are the most typical users of MDM solutions. MDM software goes more in-depth on mobile devices, giving users a huge advantage over more general IT asset management software. IT security teams also utilize MDM solutions as a part of the overall security ecosystem to both secure data and help prevent corporate information from falling into the wrong hands from a lost or stolen device.

The following are some of the more common features of MDM solutions.

Device identification — MDM solutions allow companies to build a directory of company-owned mobile assets, as well as any BYODs that employees might use for business purposes. This directory usually includes which employee possesses or owns the device, the age of the device, and any upkeep history on the device. Some more high-powered or expansive MDM solutions may also scan company networks for connected mobile devices and add those devices to the larger mobile device directory.

Device configuration — One of the larger selling points for MDM solutions is the ability to uniformly configure company devices to any required specifications. With regulatory compliance being of increasing concern, MDM tools can be a strong asset for complying with regulations that would apply to data going through mobile devices.

Device activity tracking — Businesses can use MDM software to track how their corporate mobile devices are utilized. Alongside determining whether or not these devices are properly used, they can also provide insight into whether or not having the corporate mobile device is justified.

Data security — Some MDM solutions—as part of their device configuration process—include data security implementations. These can include extra anti-malware solutions, extra levels of identity verification, data encryption, and more.

Remote security actions — Should a device be compromised, many MDM solutions provide the ability to lock down the device remotely, purge all business data from that device, or even wipe the device completely. Actions might dependent on whether the device is corporately owned or belongs to an employee.