Leveraging device management to thrive in the work-from-home era: Onkar Singh

According to a recent report by Statista, approximately 30% of the world's employees have shifted to work from home (WFH) arrangement. Even while the world is steadily treading back to normalcy, companies continue to offer remote work to employees.

Data scientists at Ladders project that 25% of all high-paying jobs will be available remotely by the end of 2022 in North America. “With this continuous rise in remote work culture, one thing that can no longer be ignored by employers across the globe is – cybercrime, and they must undertake measures to ensure cybersecurity for all employees working from home,” says Onkar Singh, CEO of Mobile Device Management Software company - 42Gears.

So, how can businesses deal with cyberthreats while all their workforces work remotely?

"The simplest yet most-efficient solution is using an MDM (Mobile Device Management) software," quips Onkar. "MDM gives an organization control over the devices used for business operations - laptops, tablets, smartphones, etc.  The software makes device provisioning and management easier and allows remote administration for the smooth functioning of a company once its devices are enrolled," explains the NIT Jalandhar alumnus.

An efficient Mobile Device Management Software supports Corporate Owned, Personally Enabled (COPE) devices used by large corporations and employee-owned devices (Bring Your Own Device - BYOD) recommended for smaller organizations, helping businesses to monitor, manage, and safeguard all devices remotely.

Mobile Device Management - The Need of the Hour, but Why?

Here are the reasons that make the use of MDM crucial, per Onkar Singh:

● Companies must have full administrative control and audit capabilities over their devices, whether local or remote, according to compliance standards.

● It's impossible to enforce endpoint security on devices remotely without MDM.

● MDM is crucial for making a mobile workforce accountable, and effective.

What features are crucial for any Mobile Device Management Platform?

Before choosing or deploying MDM software, businesses should look for these features:

● Security: For data to remain secure from unauthorized access, enterprise-wide security policies and restrictions should be implemented via MDM.

● App deployment: With centralized management of licensing, companies can deploy applications in bulk based on location, workgroup, or specific job function. 

● Administrative reporting: This includes reporting features to identify devices out of compliance, enabling verification/support at a granular level.

● Patch & Firmware Management: For maintaining a stable mobile operating system environment, MDM software must offer the ability to remotely update devices to the latest version of the operating system and/or firmware.

● Centralized Logging: With centralized logging, device inventory and reporting updates are maintained on a per-device level to provide holistic views of device performance issues.

Take-Home

Times are changing, and so are the ways people work. Remote/mobile work is not going away any time soon. Hybrid is the future, however, the challenges with remote working and personal devices must be managed.

Onkar Singh believes that acknowledging and assessing your risks, implementing a BYOD or remote access policy, and choosing the right MDM solution can be a great starting point.

Disclaimer: No Deccan Chronicle journalist was involved in creating this content. The group also takes no responsibility for this content.