Inventory management is important to any business which gives its employees tools to use. Without this sort of system in place, it would be very easy for items to go missing, with very few ways to trace where they may have gone. This can be done with spreadsheets and barcodes, but modern devices have started to make the whole thing a more complicated than it used to be. To give you an idea of the work which goes into keeping all of the devices your employees use under your control, this post will be exploring some of the issues which companies face.
BYOD
Like many tools, phones, laptops, and computers are devices which people get very attached to. When someone is used to working with a certain machine, it wouldn’t make sense to force them to use something else, as this could hamper the work they do for you. Instead, it makes sense to let them bring their own machines. This presents some difficulties, though, and you can find some examples of them below.
Security:
When every has their own devices at work, it can be hard to make sure the whole system stays secure. One user may not have a password on their machine, while another may not keep their antivirus software up to date, and it only takes a couple of examples of negligence like this to bring a network to a standstill.
Compliance:
With customer data being accessed on your employee’s machines, it is essential that these machines are kept compliant with the law. If an employee doesn’t have a password and someone from outside the company was able to access their machine, for example, you could find yourself in a lot of trouble.
It makes sense to let users bring their own machines to work, but you have to be extremely careful to make sure that they are in the right condition. A lot of businesses have suffered as the result of failings in this area, though it can often be solved with MDM services, and these will be covered a little later in this article.
Monitoring Company Devices
Along with people bringing their own devices into work, a lot of companies will also provide their employees with laptops, phones, and other devices to use for their jobs. If you do this for your team, monitoring these devices and ensuring that they don’t go missing can be a real challenge. Overcoming this will take more than simple trust, and this makes it worth thinking about the issues which you could face if you are too relaxed about this area.
Theft:
If you give all of your employees phones and laptops without a proper way to monitor them, it will be very easy for them to be stolen. Whether employees are responsible or someone else is to blame, having the name of the machine in your inventory system won’t do much to help you if you can’t find the device.
Updates & Security:
While Windows has improved over the years, it still makes it far too easy for users to get around update prompts. When a machine isn’t updated for a long time, it can often have a heavy impact on its security, and this is a real problem for businesses. In an ideal world, employers should be able to deploy and monitor updates remotely.
When you invest in phones and laptops for employees, you will have to spend a huge amount of money, and it makes sense that you would want to protect them. You can rely on trust to make sure that the machines don’t get damaged, but will have to go a little further if you want to keep them from all harm.
Sorting It Out
As time goes on, more and more companies are releasing products which are designed to make the lives of network administrators and tech support agents easier. Mobile device management is a great example of this, with software and tools available which can make it possible to manage every aspect of your company’s devices. Being able to see all of your phones and laptops, along with their system status, health, and other attributes can be an incredibly resource, especially when you’ve got a lot of machines to look after.
This goes further than simply keeping your machines under wraps, though. Along with this, you will also benefit from being able to control them remotely, deploying updates and removing viruses without the user having the pay attention. This is great when people have issues with their devices when they aren’t in the office. MDM software also makes it possible to keep a much better inventory system for your tools, giving you the power to track down items which go missing.
Of course, when you’re picking the solution which you’re going to use for something like this, it will make sense to do plenty of research. Most people don’t understand the way these systems work, but you can learn how you can benefit from MDM across the web, with loads of resource breaking down the best options you have available to you. This sort of service hasn’t been around for a very long time, with these devices only hitting the scene over the last couple of decades. If anything, though, this only makes their work more important, and normal people don’t have the skills to keep their mobile devices safe and secure.
With more and more businesses relying on tools like smartphones, it makes sense that the way that inventories are managed have to change. While it costs money to set something like this up, it could cost a lot more if you lose device after device because you don’t have it, and this makes it worth looking into. Of course, if you need more help with this, you could consider talking to one of the many businesses which offer it. Getting help from the source is usually the best way to handle something like this, as you’ll be approaching the real experts.
