Unified Endpoint Management Solutions for Diverse Devices

Mobile innovation soldiers on, with an ever-expanding diversity of devices. More likely than not, this expansion is overlayed with paired accounts and synced technology, creating new deployment and security challenges for IT. A Forrester Research study, commissioned by Dell Technologies, revealed that 53% of IT leaders are struggling with the diversity of devices.

Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) can help IT teams get control. UEM enables IT to manage, secure, and deploy corporate resources and applications on any device.

“UEM brings all of the diverse devices in use under a single pane of glass,” explains Matthew Cross, Vox Mobile’s Senior Director of Technology Services. “This includes the growing number of laptops, tablets, kiosks, and virtual desktops as they become more prevalent and interconnected.”

Unified endpoint management reduces the burden of connecting these systems while lowering costs and mitigating risks. However, just having Unified Endpoint Management solutions in place isn’t the answer. You need an effective strategy and managed mobility partnership to optimize your unified endpoint management.

Bringing UEM all together

As Cross pointed out, UEM’s single pane of glass means you don’t have to go to a bunch of different platforms to manage all those different endpoints. However, there are some organizations who have yet to embrace this simplification.

“We have a client who once had multiple unified endpoint management platforms to manage their fleet of devices—one for rugged devices, one for Android, and one for their laptops and iOS,” says Tristan Sitz, Technical Pre-sales Engineer at Vox Mobile. “That was still a lot of hands-on work managing the 3 platforms. We were able to help them migrate everything to one UEM that could handle all those different devices—which not every UEM can.”

Vox Mobile was able to help this client take 3 sets of licenses and mobile device management (MDM) knowledge and shrink it down to one. Not only did this save them money and time, but IT now could see the status of their entire device population on one platform. “UEM is a very powerful management suite to do everything you need,” Stitz adds.

Moving beyond limits

IT used to be that every platform had its own management console and you had multiple tools to remote into these things, but with unified endpoint management solutions, you can do everything with one software suite. That doesn’t necessarily mean, that your organization is prepared to embrace the change. From C-level to IT, the thought of changing how things are done can cause greater disruption that the change itself.

“Oftentimes, the promise of having everything in one place for any app, any device at any time can be overwhelming for those who are settled in how they have always done things,” says Ross De Costa, Senior Enterprise Mobility Consultant for Vox Mobile. “You have to be willing to change and to learn to get the most out of your MDM.”

Sitz shares a story about one client who really struggled to move beyond their self-imposed limits. “The helpdesk was responsible for managing thousands of Windows PCs without an MDM. They used a file repository so every time someone needed something, say access to a new app, the helpdesk had to use file share and remotely log in to manually install the app. That was just 2 years ago, but that kind of mobile device management is from 20 years ago,” he says. “You’d be surprised at how many customers are stuck in that way of thinking.”

With a Unified Endpoint Management solution, all your users have to do is to go to their catalogue, download the approved app, and get rolling. It streamlines a convoluted process and simplifies access for users and IT teams—less effort to accomplish the same goal.

De Costa advises, “You need to be agile and open to new innovations that can expand your business opportunities. We can show you how it would look so you can see for yourself and better manage your changing environment.”

Learning curve

The IT resource crisis is affecting many businesses across industries. The lack of talented and experienced engineers with specialized skills, especially in mobile device management, is holding many companies back.

“A lot of IT specialists are coming from a desktop world and that logic often won’t work for mobile,” says De Costa.  This leaves many inexperienced teams trying to make their new UEM technology work like old-school tech. “For instance, they may want to install files on the desktop in a certain order and in certain folders—which is doable, but you’re left with just hoping it worked.”

Getting to that point that apps install properly, pull all the files down that they’re supposed to, and that they have proper licensing from the server can be confusing. If someone doesn’t understand how this works and how to effectively manage devices, or full scope, it can be very difficult, and they could go down the wrong path.

Once customers identify that what they’re doing isn’t working, it can be a challenge for them to reach out for help. Some just do work arounds and aren’t getting the full management or financial benefits out of this technology they just paid a lot for.

“We get it,” assures Cross. “That’s why Vox Mobile isn’t here to make anyone feel stupid—this is hard stuff, but we do it every day. We educate our clients on how they can manage the wide range of devices their employees are using without making them feel like they are completely clueless. It’s a learning curve.”

Partnering for performance

Partnering with Vox Mobile’s MDM specialists can help ensure that all your mobile devices and endpoints are managed properly. “You can have the best documentation, but if you don’t know what you’re looking for it’s not going to help,” says Sitz. “If you don’t know how a product works, it makes it hard to know where to start.”

Our mobility specialists work with you to understand what your end goal is and show you how to get there. With years of experience, focused solely on mobility management, we’re positioned to help your internal resources take full advantage of your unified endpoint management technology. “To effectively manage mobility today, you need to have experience across all devices, operating systems, virtual desktops, and a breadth of multiple endpoints,” explains Cross. “Vox Mobile gives you the opportunity to have a partner with broad mobility expertise, instead of just looking for one person with limited experience.”

Discover what Vox Mobile can do for you by scheduling a consultation with our team. Contact us to get started today.