Since the emergence of smart devices, mobile working practices have undergone an explosion of activity. While working-on-the-move was considered fantasy just decades ago, the prevalence of wireless internet and devices has given rise to a wealth of flexible working practices, and the mobile maelstrom shows no signs of calming.
Today, Gartner estimates that mobility poses one of the greatest challenges for enterprises as they struggle to keep pace with hundreds of new smartphones and tablets, face business demands for ever-more-sophisticated apps, and fight to secure corporate information on employee-owned devices. But, despite the complexity, mobility is also seen as the best opportunity for genuine business innovation that companies will see this decade, and a technology curve that organizations cannot afford to be behind.
Why Managed Mobility?
While the management of mobile devices has become a core responsibility in the 21st-century enterprise, the developments of recent flexible working trends, such as bring your own device (BYOD) and remote working, have added a new dimension of necessity.
With such exponential growth in the mobile workforce, it's never been more important to gain insight into where mobile devices are, what they cost, how they're being used, and whether the network and data are secure. But the process of obtaining this information is time-consuming and resource-draining, and many organizations lack the right policies and tools necessary to implement, support, and manage a successful enterprise mobility strategy on an ongoing basis.
To overcome this burden, forward-thinking enterprises have opted to outsource some, or all, of their mobility infrastructure and management to third-party vendors, thereby easing their financial and administrative burden. This service is known as a managed mobility service (MMS), whereby providers drive, support, and manage the entire mobile environment on behalf of their clients, controlling costs and providing visibility into the mobile habitat.
But, while outsourcing can ease enterprise-level mobility headaches, choosing the best MMS for your organization brings its own unique set of issues.
How to Choose Managed Mobility
To attain the best MMS, it's important to identify your organization's business goals and pick the provider who can help you achieve them. While each organization is unique, and your enterprise's requirements will differ from your competitors, there are several valuable MMS offerings that can help guarantee value.
1. End-to-end Service
From deployment through to end-of-life recycling, MMS providers should deliver managed services that support every element of mobility and stage of the mobile lifecycle.
From choosing the right device strategies and management platforms to ensuring connectivity and mobilizing backend systems and applications, your MMS provider must build solutions that work for your organization, no matter how far along the mobility journey.
2. Comprehensive Planning
A comprehensive plan supports the needs of all mobile end-users, whether they operate corporate-owned or BYOD devices, but to really understand the potential benefits of managed mobility services, enterprises must have insight into the current mobile environment.
By performing a comprehensive and systematic full-service audit within the planning stage, MMS providers can help optimize your telecom inventory to cut immediate costs, and, when working with you on an ongoing basis, can accurately track the financial effects of your organization's mobility deployments to deliver savings year on year.
3. Focus on Empowering End-Users
Best-in-class MMS providers understand that keeping end-users up and running, wherever they are in the world, is crucial to helping you achieve your business goals.
The provision of a managed mobility service that includes a mobile-friendly portal and a helpdesk that answers the phone in your user's native language, will help you better support your end-users and resolve their problems as quickly as possible.
4. Ongoing Cost Savings
Mobility costs needn’t keep rising. Whether via optimal contract rates, continuous plan optimization, or device-recycling proceeds, your MMS provider should always be working to save you money.
5. Stability and Longevity
Vendor stability is an invaluable commodity. Many of the leading vendors are owned by short-term investors and, as the MMS market has demonstrated in the past, longevity can be questionable.
Working with a well-established, publicly traded player with long-held ties to the industry can nullify many of the risks associated with unstable vendors, and often correlates with long-term customer satisfaction.
The Value of Powerful MMS
A strong MMS solution from a reputable managed mobility vendor solves many common mobility challenges, provides a number of key benefits, and helps an organization better meet its business goals. But while outsourcing managed mobility services to a vendor has become an attractive proposition for enterprises, choosing the right MMS provider is no mean feat.
To extract the maximum value from your MMS platform, choosing a vendor that can help with the acquisition, deployment and management of mobile devices, as well as the strategic planning that mobility initiatives require, and customize its offerings to suit your needs, is essential.
MMS from Cass Telecom is a comprehensive, focused, end-to-end solution that provides organizations with the ability to better support their customers. From mobile devices and apps to management tools and services, Cass delivers everything an enterprise needs to extract the greatest benefits from an MMS platform.
To discover how we can help better support your workforce's mobility, why not speak to Cass today? Or, learn more about today’s telecom expense management landscape with the help of Gartner. Their independent analysis of the market is an invaluable source for IT and finance professionals. Download your copy of the 2023 Gartner® Market Guide for Telecom Expense Management Services today.
Topics: managed mobility
