Mobile device management needs additional features to help enterprises manage BYOD

By Patrick Rusby, Analysys Mason Research Analyst.

The bring-your-own device (BYOD) trend is changing the enterprise technology landscape, and IT decision-makers need the tools to manage this without restricting the end-user experience. Mobile device management (MDM) is one such tool, but other services should be considered alongside MDM that will provide significant additional functionality, such as mobile application management or content management.

Our survey revealed that most BYOD activity is centred around voice and SMS

Analysys Mason’s Connected Consumer Survey showed that 52% of respondents used their personal mobile phone for work.^[1] However, when asked what they use their device for, a more interesting picture emerged. 59% of BYOD activity was centred on incoming and outgoing calls, and a further 21% is attributable to SMS. These services do not require connection to the corporate network (either for connectivity or to access corporate data). Email accounted for 14% of BYOD activity, and accessing business applications 4%. Other uses accounted for 2%, which may include accessing documents or a calendar, or using instant messaging (IM) or maps.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are increasingly adopting MDM solutions, particularly as cloud-based solutions become more widely available. Analysys Mason forecasts that cloud-based MDM revenue worldwide will increase from USD574.8 million in 2013, to USD1.5 billion in 2018, which represents a CAGR of 27.3%.

In light of the increase in enterprise mobility and BYOD, as well as increasing adoption of MDM, communications service providers (CSPs) and vendors are looking to add services to their MDM products to ensure that SMEs and larger enterprises have access to the tools that they need to secure their data and IP and manage the proliferation of mobile devices that are accessing this data.

Orange Business Services

To address the demand for additional services from SMEs and larger enterprises, Orange Business Services (OBS) has expanded its MDM product ‘Device Management Premium’ to include mobile content management and mobile application management, in partnership with MobileIron.

• Application management is a feature enabling employees to access business applications via an encrypted connection from any device. Any data that the application brings onto the device is automatically encrypted, providing a layer of protection between personal devices and business data.

• Content management is a service allowing content on the server to be secured against remote access, or made read-only, based on the profile of the device that attempts to access it. The device itself has an isolated container into which the documents are downloaded, which the administrator can remotely delete.

These features complement MDM to ensure that the enterprise’s data, files and applications are secured as part of its overall BYOD strategy^.[2] The most successful BYOD strategies do not impede the incentives for employees to use their personal devices for work, but do ensure that the enterprise’s security concerns are met.

OBS also offers a telecoms expense management (TEM) service, which can run alongside its MDM service to enable enterprises to get real-time data on mobile usage, whether on a device they provide or on an employee’s personal device. This enables the enterprise to work out the optimal mix of BYOD and corporate liable devices, and to implement a policy of reimbursing employees that use their own device for work. Only 23% of respondents to our Connected Consumer Survey who used their own device for work were actually reimbursed.

Enterprises that accept BYOD and intend to benefit from it should put in place a BYOD framework as set out above. They need to be ready to manage and support a large range of devices, and to enable employees to access the applications that they require in order to be productive. MDM provides one element of this, but it is increasingly important to have application and content management alongside this.

Link to article online: http://www.analysysmason.com/About-Us/News/Insight/MDM-features-for-BYOD-Jul2013/

<sup>[1] Our Connected Consumer Survey covers France, Germany, Poland, Spain, the UK and the USA. For further details, see our Viewpoint Voice communications drives BYOD for SMEs: insights from our Connected Consumer Survey 2013, and The Connected Consumer Survey 2013.

[2] See our article A BYOD framework for large enterprise and SMEs: addressing challenges for IT departments.</sup>