By 2020, the number of connected devices is predicted to reach 50 billion worldwide. A big factor is the growing number of enterprises that rely on mobile devices to meet business needs while also increasing efficiency and cutting costs.
As both personal and company-owned mobile devices proliferate within the workplace, enterprises are incorporating unified endpoint management, also referred to as UEM, among their mobility management capabilities. One study suggests that the global UEM market will top $7 billion by 2022 at a 38.2 percent compounded growth rate.
Unlike mobile device management (MDM)—an enterprise tool that took off almost a decade ago—UEM encompasses a broader enterprise strategy. It enables IT to remotely facilitate, manage and secure all devices within an enterprise, including mobile phones, tablets and, most recently, wearables and IoT devices.
With UEM still a bourgeoning IT strategy, enterprise leaders curious about its capabilities will question how their business and customers will be affected—especially in the era of digital transformation. Companies contemplating the shift of UEM within mobile devices in the enterprise should keep several aspects top-of-mind.
UEM Delivers on the Promise of a Mobile Seamless Experience Across the Enterprise
Acting as a single management interface, UEM combines the management of multiple endpoint variations in a sole console that configures, manages and monitors all operating systems including iOS, Windows 10, Android, macOS and even wearables. Long term this could also include IoT type devices as standards continue to be developed.
This means that multiple device management no longer must rest on a variety of independent administration platforms and consoles. For the enterprise, this offers a seamless and more secure experience in the management of mobile devices—a possibility once foreign to the market.
Gartner predicts that, as businesses continue to enhance enterprise mobility and project management tools, UEM will have growing application with wearables, IoT and other emerging technology. In the not-too-distant future, as UEM tools expand, legacy enterprise systems may become extinct.
UEM Embraces the BYOD Enterprise Model
Moving from end-user computing to enterprise mobility management in just 10 short years, employees have experienced many challenges in connecting with business-critical apps and obtaining information that enables them to do their jobs better. These challenges have been especially critical in their efforts to bring their own devices—the so-called BYOD model—into the workplace.
Now, nearly every facet of the workplace depends on employee mobility, from the beginnings of a supply chain to customer interactions on a website or showroom floor. Companies are overcoming their initial objections to BYOD. With these changes come the need for enterprises to integrate various types of devices into business-critical operations in ways that are functional, manageable and provide a productive user experience.
Along with the benefits offered by the BYOD model, including the ease of use and the potential for lower IT costs, unified endpoint management allows all enterprise endpoints to run cohesively—giving access to visibility, consistency and sense of control across the enterprise. Security also plays a big role around this.
UEM in the Current Digital Transformation Era Improves Mobile Enterprise Demands
Present-day demands of digital transformation are putting pressure on CIOs and other tech enterprise leaders to reinvent legacy processes sooner rather than later. CIOs, CTOs and senior IT managers alike are expected to keep pace with expanding constant enterprise demands—and most are struggling to adapt.
Recent research indicates that 87 percent of IT managers are having a difficult time adjusting to a more expanding role that involves being part of innovation initiatives. With more Android and iOS mobile devices paired with innovative technologies such as artificial intelligence, it’s only a matter of time when AI will move centerstage with multiple touchpoints within the enterprise mobility arena.
By adopting unified endpoint management in the cloud, enterprise leaders equipped to manage and embrace advanced technologies designed for the digital transformation era will function in an efficient way that secures and controls all devices and endpoints.
In the future features such as AI, could be envisioned to be added to these management platforms, so automated tasks could take the burden off of human interaction for large numbers of endpoints. Combined with enhanced security toolsets and integration with other communication, network and application platforms, tasks such as self-healing, patch management reversal and dynamic bandwidth allocation, could make end-users much more transparent to regular IT issues and problem, and fix them before they notice.
Transitioning in a digital world where connected devices dominate will be necessary for enterprise leaders to embrace the need for unified endpoint management. It makes for an improved mobile ecosystem that functions for a future-proof enterprise business model.
Marco Nielsen is Vice President of Managed Mobility Services at Stratix.