Points to ponder while choosing your first UEM solution

It is a known fact that enterprises today hugely depend on mobile technologies for performing tasks. They will have to manage a large number of devices both at their offices and remotely. This in turn increases the workload of their IT admins, who are in charge of keeping all the work devices up and about without fail. While some companies do not have the capacity to manage such a vast IT infrastructure, others find it difficult to maintain and configure their share of extensive devices. This is where a Unified Endpoint Management or UEM can become quite handy in making the IT admin’s life a lot easier. Having said that, how do you choose the best UEM solution for your enterprise? Read further if you are curious to know.

What is a UEM solution?

Before finding out the methods to pick out the best UEM solution for your enterprise, let’s get to know something more about them. Unified Endpoint Management might sound like jargon, quite difficult to comprehend. But it’s not all that difficult. A UEM solution helps an enterprise to combinedly manage all of its endpoint devices such as tablets, smartphones, laptops, TVs, wearables, and IoT devices through a single console. It can be used to monitor data and apps on all the said endpoints. In simple words, a UEM is a one-stop solution for an enterprise’s device management needs.

UEM evolution

UEM didn’t hit the market out of the blue. Its forerunners are Mobile Device Management (MDM) and Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM). While UEM, MDM and EMM are all about remote device management, they do have significant differences amongst their features.

During the time when all the devices used by employees were owned by the enterprise, MDM was the tool adopted for real-time monitoring, reporting, policy enforcement, and inventory tracking. Soon the device management scenario demanded more security and management features, which led to the advent of EMM. With EMM solutions, enterprises had the liberty to compartmentalize BYODs into personal and work profiles, enhancing data security.

In later stages, more smart devices including PCs, wearables, and IoTs entered the enterprise scenario. This gave rise to employees collaborating and accessing enterprise resources from multiple locations and at multiple times. Enterprises are now focused on maximizing employee productivity along with device and data security. This increased need for a more complex and foolproof device management tool led to the evolution of UEM.

Why UEM?

UEM solutions have all the capabilities of its predecessors including Mobile Device Management (MDM), Mobile Application Management (MAM), Mobile Security Management (MSM), Mobile Content Management (MCM), Mobile Expense Management (MEM), kiosk management, and so on. It further offers other enhanced features like no-touch deployment of devices under different platforms to make them business-ready over-the-air. It has seamless business integrations to boost productivity and can manage different business scenarios, like BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), CYOD (Choose Your Own Device), COPE (Corporate Owned Personally Enabled), COBO (Corporate Owned Business Only), and so on.

Anyone with first-hand experience in managing endpoints would tell you how difficult it is to use multiple tools to get their work done. It is not just expensive but also exhausting as the IT admins are required to extensively train themselves to use these tools. This is why UEM solutions have become a lifesaver for the entire IT administration fraternity. Choosing a versatile and efficient UEM solution would help enterprises drastically cut down on IT asset management costs. Features like Zero Trust approach, system and application-level encryptions, web content filtering, kiosk lockdown, lost mode, and much more have added to the scope of device and data security that UEM solutions provide.

Must ask queries to choose the best UEM solution

1. 1. How user-friendly is the UEM solution? — The UEM will be used to manage endpoints working on different platforms including iOS, Android, and Windows. It is ideal if all the information including enrolled devices, device compliance, attached policies, reports, and so on are displayed on a single panel. A well-organized and centralized dashboard would definitely earn a ten on ten. Single pane management would help IT admins to efficiently handle the assets and devices in an enterprise.
   2. What makes your product stand out in the UEM market? — We all want the best for ourselves, don’t we? Similar is the case while choosing a UEM solution for your enterprise. To figure out the best UEM solution for your enterprise, you need to do thorough research of what are the unique features exclusively provided by a particular UEM tool. You should also make sure that it meets all the requirements raised by your enterprise and that the makers of the UEM tool are constantly and tirelessly working to timely upgrade it as per the industry standards.
   3. What are the different ways in which the UEM solutions are deployed to end-users? — A growing enterprise means more the number of endpoints that need to be managed. This is when the different methods of deployment provided by a UEM solution becomes crucial. Zero Touch Enrolment and pushing policies to device groups prove to be of huge help for IT admins who are assigned to manage a growing fleet of endpoint devices.
   4. What is the device scalability offered by the UEM solution? — As your enterprise keeps growing, you will be in dire need to enhance the number of endpoints, which would have to be managed using the UEM solution. This makes it important to check the scalability of the UEM tool. It should be capable of managing a growing number of devices.
   5. How does the UEM solution help in countering risks and privacy issues? — UEM solutions were designed to rule out the possible threats caused by data and security breaches on endpoint devices. The UEM solution must be able to remotely enforce policies that help in securing devices and data. It must also be able to locate lost devices, wipe off data, change the device owner and password, facilitate device encryptions, secure networks, conduct regular device monitoring etc, so that no device or data compromise occurs.
   6. What are the various platforms supported by the UEM solution? — The best UEM solution will contribute towards supporting and managing a plethora of endpoint devices such as smartphones, desktops, tablets, IoT devices, wearables that work on iOS, Windows, Android, macOS, or any other popular OS. Multiple device management is a must-have feature for the UEM tool you choose. Also, you should check if the UEM is capable of handling different usage scenarios like BYOD, Corporate-Owned-Single-Use devices (COSU), CYOD, COPE, etc.
   7. How well does the UEM solution interact with other third-party products? — Enterprises would already be using a bunch of third-party services for their day-to-day functioning. The proposed UEM solution should not create any hindrance in their functionality. In turn, the UEM solution should help in seamlessly working with them.
   8. How efficient is the UEM solution with remote device troubleshooting? — With a number of your devices on the move, it is not always practical to go in person to troubleshoot the device and fix the issues. The UEM solution under discussion should be able to efficiently perform remote troubleshooting.

1. What do we do in case of UEM related queries? — Whatever be the service, the user experience would always be enhanced with proper customer support. When in doubt you should not be left alone in the field struggling to handle the situation. A comprehensive customer support is a must-have feature to make a UEM the best UEM solution in the existing competitive marketplace.
2. Is the UEM solution affordable? — After a hard day’s search, you finally settled on a UEM solution with great features. But what if the subscription fee just skyrocketed and blew up the roof for you? It is the last but definitely not the least point to remember that you choose a UEM solution that offers a wide range of features and services all at a very reasonable cost.

10 questions, 1 solution — Hexnode UEM

Having read all the above queries, doubtful if you would ever find a UEM tool that you can call the best UEM solution? Stay on track and don’t lose hope until you check out what Hexnode UEM has to offer.

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Why Hexnode UEM?

Hexnode offers a powerful suite of features to get all your devices on board and make them work-ready. Download the brochure to learn how Hexnode is the right solution for modern-day enterprise mobility problems.

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• • Single centralized dashboard — Hexnode UEM has a centralized dashboard, which is user-friendly as it displays all its features on a single pane. The dashboard in a gist gives information regarding enrolled devices, device compliances, enforced policies, managed app summary, activity feed, enrolled device location, reports, etc.
  • Advanced and unique features — Hexnode UEM offers an array of advanced features best suited for the changing trends in the UEM world. No-touch out-of-the-box bulk device enrollment, compliance management, and monitoring, device restrictions, kiosk lockdown mode, location-based services, bandwidth management with data tracking and data restriction, etc are some of Hexnode UEM’s features to name a few.
  • Device deployment — There are multiple deployment options offered by Hexnode UEM. Some of them are generic while the others are specific to various platforms such as iOS, Android, iPadOS, Fire OS, macOS, Windows, and tvOS. Its Zero-touch deployment feature enables automatic provisioning of settings, configurations, and applications on endpoint devices without the aid of IT intervention. The implementations would take place as soon as the device is unboxed by the employee.
  • Scalability — Hexnode UEM’s zero-touch and bulk deployment options are a great way to scale across any number of devices a company owns.
  • Risk and privacy management options — Risk and privacy management has always been a strong point for Hexnode UEM. Passcode protection, blacklisting and whitelisting of websites, enforcing device encryption, web content filtering, enforce encryption, configure VPN and Wi-Fi, etc are a few of its features that help secure all your endpoints.

• Multi-platform support — Hexnode is compatible with iOS, iPadOS. Android, Fire OS, Windows, macOS, and tvOS devices. It also functions well on corporate-owned, BYOD and COSU devices, enabling employees to work on devices they are comfortable with. A part of the employee’s personal device can be separated and secured into a “Container” on iOS devices as well as on Android devices enrolled in the Android Enterprise (Android for Work) program. This helps the enterprise have full control over the apps and data within the work container.
• Third-party product integrations — Some of the third-party product integrations supported by Hexnode are Android Enterprise, Apple Business Manager & Apple School Manager, Samsung Knox, Google Workspace, Azure AD, Microsoft Active Directory, LG Enterprise Solutions, Kyocera Enterprise Solution, Zendesk Support, etc. This helps enterprises to integrate these products into their devices managed by Hexnode UEM.
• Remote troubleshooting — Hexnode UEM helps IT admins to remotely perform real-time device troubleshooting effectively with the following features — remote power off and device restart, remote view and control, software updates, execute custom scripts, etc.
• Query resolution — If you face any issue with regards to the UEM, the Hexnode Customer Support Team is just a phone call away. We have a very satisfied clientele who are really happy with our customer support. We also have an array of resources including webinars, blogs, help docs, whitepapers, datasheets, etc to help you stay updated on Hexnode UEM. The Hexnode Academy provides certificate courses and opens the door for you to become a Hexnode expert.
• Feasibility — All the above features and more are available to you at great prices. The various price schemes offered by Hexnode UEM are Express, Pro, Enterprise, Ultimate, and Ultra. You can also take a look at our detailed pricing plan here.

Takeaway

Hexnode UEM’s overall ease of use, advanced features, integrations with third-party products, extensive security and risk management features, robust customer support, and other unique properties make it one of the best UEM solutions in the current cybersecurity market.