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10 Questions to Ask When Evaluating Mobility Management Solutions

10 Questions to Ask When Evaluating Mobility Management Solutions

10 Questions to Ask When Evaluating Mobility Management Solutions

Keeping your company’s mobile devices secure is essential, and as such, companies offer mobility management solutions to track and control all a company’s mobile devices. When deciding which of those solutions are right for your business, it helps to know the right questions to ask. To that end, we’ve listed 10 critical questions to ask when evaluating mobility management tools.

Is your business considering deploying a mobility management platform? Our free 2020 Buyer’s Guide contains profiles on the top vendors in the mobility management field and their key features and functions. It also lists questions you should ask yourself and prospective vendors before you choose a solution.

Download Link to MDM Buyer's Guide

Questions Your Business Should Ask Itself

How sophisticated is our mobile environment?

Users are accessing data through their devices more often, leaving that data at risk of theft or loss. Mobility management tools have evolved past traditional MDM to address application, content, and data management. Consider your current mobile environment and look to the future. If your needs go beyond focusing on hardware and application concerns, then a comprehensive EMM solution should be chosen over a more traditional MDM solution.

How will a mobility management solution impact employees?

Enterprise mobility calls for security and management, and with that comes a view into what a device is doing, its location, and what is stored on it. Employee concerns around privacy can crop up, possibly leading to rejection of mobility programs or noncompliance with policy. Ask vendors for their input to develop policies outlining the do’s and don’ts of device usage. Users will benefit from increased mobility, but those benefits should not be gained at the expense of user trust.

Do I have the internal resources to maintain a mobility management solution?

Typically, IT will be responsible for securing devices and data while keeping up with compliance needs and regulation. Mobility management solutions are meant to alleviate some of the burden mobility brings, but first, evaluate your internal team and understand what they can handle. Mobility management can save time, effort, and money in the long run, but if the solution you choose isn’t the right fit, it can become clunky and cost prohibitive.

How will our company ensure compliance and decrease risk?

Monitoring tools help maintain a certain level of compliance, but some of these functions are more reactive then proactive. Waivers, forms and policy agreements are typically needed before access to network data is granted. To ensure compliance and policy integrity, communication and education is the best policy. By communicating rules and regulations directly to users, you can feel better about there being a true understanding of your mobile policies.

What mobility management functions will our enterprise mobile policy entail?

Each mobility management vendor offers something different, so it’s important to be aware of your mobility needs as well as how employees use their mobile devices. If your employees are using multiple diverse endpoints, finding a solution with Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) capabilities would be critical. Other functions include data encryption, data management, device management, data protection, and application management.

If you want to learn more about how you can protect your company’s mobile devices, you should check out our Mobility Management Buyer’s Guide. We profile the top vendors in the mobility management field, list their key capabilities, and note our Bottom Line for each.

Questions You Should Ask Potential Mobility Management Providers

How hard will it be to integrate your mobility management solution into my infrastructure?

Mobility management implementations can be hard enough on a small scale. That is why it is important to truly understand how a mobility management solution will integrate into your current architecture and what the implementation process will look like before getting started. Your company should look for solutions with simple installation requirements, distributed control, and scalability suitable for your organization’s size and structure.

How do you maintain or improve the user experience?

A negative user experience can be more than just a nuisance for the employees of your company. If users start to find ways around the rules you have set and technology you have implemented because they are too inconvenient, you may experience security breaches you hadn’t anticipated in addition to the potential for decreased productivity. Collaborate with IT and your employees to protect data without infringing on user privacy.

How flexible is the mobility management architecture and solution?

With new operating systems, device features, and capabilities entering the market, making a choice can be difficult. That’s why it will be important for you to find out how adaptable, flexible, and scalable a provider’s solution is. Choosing a tool that isn’t flexible will become a real problem as new devices continue to be introduced and become part of the mix. Keep in mind your needs for the future as switching solutions may prove to be a difficult process.

What aspects of my mobile strategy will I need to manage?

While mobility management solutions will take care of many mobile security protocols, your enterprise is still responsible for aspects of management. Knowing what your business will need to manage can guide you in your purchasing decision. You need to consider whether to approach the process with an aim to shop for the best single solution that covers everything, or to look for the best solution for each particular area of mobility and then try to integrate them all together.

With the rise in BYOD, does your solution offer containerization?

BYOD offers great options for employees, but it can also present a tough mix of personal and corporate data for IT to have to manage. Actions such as remote wiping or locking may need to be taken. Solutions offering containerization can help prevent some of the issues organizations face when allowing for BYOD. For example, containers can separate personal and corporate data, so that data is safe while using their personal device in a corporate environment.


Looking for more info on the benefits of mobility management for your company’s mobile devices? You should check out our free 2020 Mobility Management Buyer’s Guide. We profile the top vendors in the mobility management field, their key capabilities, and our Bottom Line for each.

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Download Link to MDM Buyer's Guide

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