The enterprise mobility evolution has taken the corporate world by storm, increasing employee productivity and contributing to a culture of constant business connectivity. However, given the complexity of most enterprise mobility ecosystems, many organizations struggle with identifying gaps in their programs and eliminating bottlenecks without the help of an experienced MMS provider. While handling mobility internally may seem like the more cost-effective way to go, your organization is likely wasting millions of dollars and unnecessarily burdening your IT team. The only thing worse than managing enterprise mobility manually is working with the wrong MMS provider that complicates your ecosystem without providing real value.
In this blog, we outline the steps to selecting the right managed mobility services provider to delight your employees and optimize your business processes. Whether you are looking to outsource mobility management for the first time or are considering transitioning away from your current provider, we guide you through one of the most important decision-making processes for your digital ecosystem.
According to Gartner, Managed Mobility Services (MMS) “encompasses the IT and process management services required by a company to acquire, provision, and support smartphones, tablets, and ruggedized field force devices with integrated cellular and/or wireless connectivity.” To understand why MMS is critical to productivity, it’s important to look at the modern mobile ecosystem across a majority of enterprise-level organizations. Mature organizations are facing a shift in digital connectivity, with 52% of employees utilizing three or more devices for work that all require centralized management. As new device types continue to flood into the workplace and the mobility ecosystem continues to grow in complexity, your organization will struggle to keep up without the right MMS provider and technology in place.
If you are unable to answer any of these questions, you need to invest in an MMS platform that unifies, connects, and organizes information from disparate sources to provide a single source of truth.
The first step in choosing a managed mobility services provider starts with your business needs and mobile aspirations. Before you even begin looking into vendors, spend some time evaluating your current mobility system and identifying areas for improvement.
Start with the basics. What is your current device ownership model? Do you foresee this ownership model changing over the next few years? If so, how prepared are you right now to take on this transition? Next, dive into your current mobility management process to identify possible gaps or bottlenecks that are frustrating business productivity. Do you have visibility across your entire mobile fleet, across device types, carriers, and geographies? How are you keeping track of the device lifecycle, and who is in charge of this management process? Are you able to connect auxiliary systems to your mobility ecosystem in order to pull inventory, billing, and usage data? Third-party platforms, such as HR management systems and IT service management (ITSM), constitute an important, and often overlooked, element of enterprise mobility. Are you getting a truly holistic view of the end user’s digital workplace? All of these questions help paint a picture of your ecosystem and allow you to make a “checklist” of requirements for your next MMS partner.
It is critically important to work with a provider that understands your current mobility infrastructure and is able to immediately improve upon your processes to enhance business operations. In order to make sure this happens, your team needs to be aware and aligned on your mobility needs.
According to Dell, 60% of modern professionals use smartphones for work, and 45% say that mobile devices increase their overall business productivity. Not only are these devices taking over the workplace, they are also blurring the line between professional and private lives. Even the simple act of responding to a work email on your smartphone on your way home contributes to a culture of constant connectivity. The employee should be at the center of your mobility ecosystem, but many organizations drop the ball when it comes to end-user experience.
It may sound appealing to outsource all IT help desk operations to offshore call centers in order to minimize costs, but this creates an inconsistent and frustrating UX. Employees often wait for days, if not weeks, to receive replacements, upgrades, or stipend reimbursements. These delays prohibit them from working remotely, diminish their productivity, and may even interfere with their client relationships. While offshore or other remote help desk support is cost-effective for some forms of troubleshooting, working with a managed mobility services provider that enables operational workflows to address common concerns puts the power back in the employee’s hands and minimizes the need for help desk services. A self-service mobile management app allows employees to order new devices or request device repairs without going through a corporate help desk. Best-in-class platforms also include workflow automation capabilities that streamline approvals and other bureaucratic functions, minimizing managerial intervention. By automating routine processes, you increase both organizational efficiency and employee satisfaction, feeding two proverbial birds with one excellent MMS provider.
When deciding between mobility partners, pay close attention to how they approach and handle end-user experience. How easy is their platform to use? Does it streamline and simplify support services across the device lifecycle? The goal of working with an outsourced provider is to create a smooth, flexible mobile work environment with limited input from your internal team.
An MMS provider should provide a secure mobile environment to ensure corporate data is protected and employee privacy is respected. Security is a particularly big concern for organizations operating under a BYOD or hybrid mobility model, which implies hundreds if not thousands of unsecured personal devices. The Verizon 2019 Data Breach Investigation Report found that 80% of breaches stem from stolen or weak credentials on employee phones and laptops. It comes as no surprise, then, that effective mobile device management is a modern business necessity and should be one of the main factors you consider when choosing a managed mobility services provider.
The first step to securing corporate and employee data is investing in MDM software to monitor and manage devices at scale. Although most organizations have completed this step and currently use MDM software to automate access controls and enforce compliance policies, few have achieved the data visibility necessary to optimize security processes without incurring unnecessary costs. Ideally, your MMS provider will allow you to integrate MDM software within your mobility ecosystem to monitor, manage, and track devices across business units and geographies, all in the same platform. It’s always best to opt for a single SaaS platform that manages all aspects of your mobility and allows for integrations with your existing software.
Throughout this blog, we’ve stressed the importance of analyzing your current needs, but it’s important to make sure your organization is prepared for the changes to come. Choose a MMS provider that will grow with you as you encounter new technologies, device types, and policies. For example, if you are currently operating under a corporate liable model and looking to transition to a BYOD or hybrid mobility model in the foreseeable future, your provider needs to have the technology in place to handle multiple device types across multiple carriers in a single platform. Who would’ve thought just a few years ago that people would be walking around with a smartphone on their wrist? The mobility ecosystem is currently changing and evolving, so it’s important to work with a provider that stays one step ahead of these trends and is nimble enough to adopt them in real time.
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Now that you’ve assessed your mobility needs and know what to expect from a managed mobility services provider, request a consultation with the Sakon team to discover our best-in-class solution and how we can support your mobility goals.