A series about the life cycle of mobile devices
Topic No. 3 – The easiest way to set up and distribute corporate mobile devices
We have described the first steps in choosing suitable mobile devices for business purposes in previous articles on our blog – How to choose a mobile device and Why it is more advantageous to rent a mobile device. Here is the continuation of our series, this time about setting up mobile devices and how to handle it as quickly and efficiently as possible.
If you purchase mobile devices for your employees, you first have to put them into operation and distribute them. What today is a formality for a ten-member company is an enormous burden in terms of time and logistics for a company with a hundred. What is the simplest way to set up and distribute hundreds or thousands of company smartphones, tablets and laptops?
The more people there are, the more problems there are
If you have from a few to 15 employees, and you buy the same equipment for everyone, you can manage the setup and distribution yourself in collaboration with your IT department. But once the number of employees grows closer to a hundred, the entire agenda becomes much more challenging.
Can you imagine manually unpacking hundreds of smartphones from their boxes, putting them into operation, installing the applications, setting permissions, and distributing them among employees? And what about the moment when you buy different smartphones for every department, and someone doesn’t want a business phone and works from their own private phone (BYOD principle).
Such work would take weeks.
Security and access rights
In addition, it is not enough to just set up and distribute mobile devices. Corporate data security, GDPR and access rights to data and applications also have to be taken into account. For example, managers need access to all internal documents and reports, but they can make do without access to warehouse management documentation. Warehouse workers need to know the stock level along with the prices of articles, but on the other hand they don’t need to see the purchase prices.
Setting access rights to applications or documents means additional work that will take an enormous amount of time for tens and hundreds of devices. In larger companies, the IT department would do nothing else.
Remote management technology will help
At System4u, we therefore offer companies technologies for remote mobile device management. We upload the new devices’ IMEI numbers to the Enterprise Mobility Management software, which we usually receive directly from the distributor, and set up and install the devices remotely without unpacking them from their boxes.
However, if necessary, we unpack all devices, put them into operation, test them, and install applications that cannot be installed or set up remotely. Subsequently, we will pack up the device again, enclose instructions (in a foreign language if required) and send them by carrier directly to the end customer’s hands.
The customer then just unpacks the device, starts it up and after connecting to the Internet, everything is set up for them automatically – applications are installed, permissions are set, the appearance of the user environment is edited, and so on. It’s all simple, and it will save large companies a huge amount of time, money and worry.
In addition to mobile devices, we can also supply other accessories, such as protective covers, glass covers, all in the company jacket.
Or, after the phone is first connected, the company jingle can sound, the company logo can be set in the background and employees can receive company notifications on the device. All thanks to EMM.
Anyway, to conclude, here are a few mundane details. What exactly does a properly set up mobile device offer?
- Employees can access company documents any time and from anywhere – they don’t have to sit in the office, so they are more efficient and satisfied.
- Thanks to the correct access settings, they can only see what the company allows them to.
- It is possible to prohibit the downloading of untrustworthy third party applications.
- Work and private space can be strictly separated in the phone.
- In the event of the loss of or damage to the device, it is possible to delete data remotely, so it will not be accessed by unauthorized persons.
- The IT department (or another data administrator) has all company devices under control from one administration console. They send application updates simultaneously and deal with everything remotely, without the need to have the device physically with them.
- It is also possible to have applications on the phones that are commonly used on computers.
- For work purposes, such settings can also be made on the employee’s private phone.
- In the event of any problem, a System4u technician will help.
And we’ll talk more about that next time.