How to Secure Corporate Mobility: The Role Service Providers Play in Comprehensive Device Management

According to Global Data, in 2022, the corporate mobility market was worth $36 billion and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 15% by 2027. This growth is being driven across all industries as businesses seek to improve employee productivity, business processes, security, business data, and the customer experience. And it’s not just the typical corporate back-office workers embracing mobile working; increasingly, businesses are empowering front-line employees in industries such as healthcare, education, construction, agriculture, and retail to work on the go. According to OMDIA, mobile employees make up most of the workforce today. Only 33% of workers are “tethered” to a single place, like a head office or store. Despite the increase in mobile workforces, the OMDIA survey found that only 12% of businesses can claim that over 90% of their devices used for business purposes are managed by an enterprise mobility solution.

This lack of oversight of their organization’s devices is creating headaches for IT administrators, such as:

• Security risks of employees using non-work-related apps, insecure Wi-Fi, or malicious apps
• Increased costs without an up-to-date inventory of devices or the ability to track them
• Data loss and IP breach risks when they cannot deactivate or wipe lost or stolen devices
• Exposure to GDPR and other regulatory compliance issues without the ability to apply

policies to restrict application use (i.e., data privacy and ‘right to disconnect’ regulations).

The business continuity and security ramifications are harsh. In 2023, it was estimated that the average cost of a data breach in the U.S. was $9.48M. And while many consider a cyber-attack as the most considerable risk to their business, it’s often their own employees who inadvertently allow criminals to walk through the front door:

• 69% of the employees admitted deliberately bypassing security controls in the past 12 months.
• 93% of employees knew their actions would increase risk to their organization but undertook them anyway. ^[1]

The Role of Communications Service Providers

It’s estimated that nearly 4,000 new cyberattacks occur every day around the world. Every 14 seconds, a company falls victim to a ransomware attack. While the risk is clear, many businesses are still being hamstrung by managing multiple platforms and manual processes to secure their devices. And when IoT is added to the mix, businesses urgently need a better way to simplify and secure their enterprise’s mobility devices. This is where CSPs’ expertise in offering secure and scalable solutions comes to the fore. Enghouse Network’s Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) solution enables CSPs to become a one-stop mobility and security shop for their business customers. As a white-labeled solution, EMM allows CSPs to offer their business customers an end-to-end corporate mobile management solution that enables them to:

• Implement comprehensive security measures, such as password enforcement, data encryption, and the ability to wipe corporate data from lost or stolen remotely.
• Boost the customer’s field team’s productivity by customizing and standardizing applications and functionalities to suit their business needs.
• Seamlessly manage multiple devices across Android and iOS platforms via a single management interface, ensuring all corporate mobile devices are up to date.
• Gain detailed insights with real-time monitoring through a tailored, responsive, cross-platform web environment.

Because the solution is effortless to implement and maintain, EMM provides a value-added service that increases CSP revenues and enhances customer satisfaction, loyalty, and stickiness.  For example, VIVO, Brazil’s largest telecom provider, has experienced remarkable growth in its EMM solutions:

• 250% increase in carrier software revenue.
• 400% increase in the activation of EMM value-added services (VAS).
• Significantly higher-than-average increase in ARPU.