Mobile Device Management and Its Team – Making BYOD Security Robust

The BYOD concept is evolving very quickly and the changes are influencing "how enterprises have adopted this technology" very considerably. They are forcing IT section chiefs to think more intrusively and acquire tools to control this situation without restricting the end user experience. MDM or Mobile Device Management is one such very handy tool but as BYOD concept continues to spread, businesses would require many other services in integration with MDM. Two of such services are Mobile Access Management (MAM) and Content Management.

A survey revealed that most of BYOD activities revolve around voice call and texts. Another survey, conducted by Analysis Mason showed that around fifty-two percent respondents used their personal smart phones and tablets for work. However, an interesting picture emerged when they were asked about what they use their mobile phones for. Around fifty-nine percent activities conducted on BYOD devices were incoming and outgoing call, whereas twenty-one percent were pertaining to sending and receiving texts. These services don’t require connectivity to the company's main server. Emails covered fourteen percent part of BYOD usage by the employees and use for accessing business apps stayed meek with just 4 percent.

In this survey, it was found that small and medium businesses are quickest in adopting MDM solutions as cloud based technology becomes more widespread. The analysts working with Analysis Mason forecast that revenue of cloud-based MDM solutions would grow to USD 1.5 billion in 2018 from USD 574 million at present. This way, it will witness the compound annual growth rate of 27 percent. 

In this era of regular swelling of enterprise mobile apps culture, BYOD culture and adoption of MDM solutions, every MDM providing company is gearing up by adding more features to their services. The motive is to ensure that buyers in the form of small and medium sized business owners and larger enterprises have all the tools to secure their data and IP and control proliferation of smart phones that are being used to access the data. A very notable MDM services providing company have now augmented its services and adding "Mobile Content Management" and "Mobile Access Management" services as well. This is a clear indication of where BYOD trend is heading towards and how not only business owners, but also service providers are gearing up to face these changes.

Amidst this, MAM is getting its due respect and recognition, as it has enabled employees to access enterprise mobile apps via an encrypted connection from any smart device. Moreover, all the data brought in by enterprise apps is automatically encrypted thus, providing an added layer of protection between enterprise and personal apps present in the smart device.

Content management services allow content on the servers to be secured during remote access. In many cases, it is made "Read Only" depending upon the type of device, trying to access this data. Nowadays, many devices have an isolated container, where this data is downloaded and stored. This container remains in the jurisdiction of the IT chief and he can delete the data wherever needed.

CONCLUSION

Both these functionalities complement MDM services and ensure that business owners have the tools to secure their sensitive and confidential data while adopting BYOD concept. These BYOD strategies have gained huge success across the globe because they don’t hinder with the user's autonomy of using their smart phones and personal apps installed in them. Instead, they allow them more incentives and side-by side ensure robust security solutions for enterprise data.