Blog | May 22, 2015

The Number One MDM Practice You Can't Afford To Get Wrong

By The Business Solutions Network

MSP And VAR Branding

Some VARs and MSPs opt to take a hands off approach when it comes to bring your own device (BYOD) and mobile device management (MDM) opportunities. But, savvy resellers recognize three facts: First, your customers are going to use their personal mobile devices at work whether end users have corporate policies and solutions in place or not. And second, by not doing anything, your customers are at a greater risk of a data breach. And, finally, there’s money to be made in mobility.

While there is a myriad of advice regarding where you should start selling MDM solutions and services, Brandon Gruttadauria, senior technology solutions engineer at Ingram Micro, offers three best practices that should be at the top of your list. (See “MDM services: Three best practices for managed services providers.“)

Without regurgitating Gruttadauria’s words of wisdom, one of his points bears repeating, which is that you should “Avoid an all-or-nothing approach to security.” This is a lesson some VARs and MSPs learn the hard way and here’s an example of what I mean. Let’s say one of your customer’s employees resigns or gets terminated, and you’re tasked with ensuring the employee’s personal device is free from all corporate data and apps before the employee walks out the door. The “all or nothing” approach warrants performing a hard reset or similar exercise that accomplishes the customer’s goal with one caveat: It wipes out the employee’s personal data (e.g. photos, videos, music, emails, texts, contacts, apps, etc.) too! Not only does this guarantee that a bad situation (termination) is going to become worse (yelling, tears, law suits), that fact is that it can — and should — have been prevented in the first place. Be sure when you’re researching an MDM solution that you choose one that supports dual persona or secure container technology, which enables the software to distinguish between corporate and personal assets that reside on the same device.