When choosing your mobile fleet management solution, there are plenty of parameters to consider. Depending on your employees and their activity, an MDM (Mobile Device Management) solution may be more consistent than a MAM (Mobile Application Management) solution. Or the other way around. Are you lost?
Here is a comparison that should help you to make your choice.
Mobile Device Management VS Mobile Application Management, how to compare them?
To compare MDM and MAM solutions, we focused on 4 points that, we believe, are essential: security, control, flexibility and user experience (UX).
Safety and security
MDM solutions have long been considered as the grail of security. All because of a rather simple idea: if you provide the device to your employees, and this device remains the property of the company, you tend to think that there is less risk of data hacking, less risk of information loss, etc.
Let’s sweep away this (bad) idea, which turns out to be false: just because your employee uses his own device does not mean that there is more (or less) risk of hacking, data loss or technical problems. Today, there are very advanced MAM solutions available, allowing companies to secure all information transmitted to employees quite simply.
Winner: tie
Control
If the choice of a MAM solution will give your company access to some of the applications contained on their employee’s device, choosing a MDM solution will allow you to keep an eye on ALL that is happening on the employees’ device. And even more: to have access to all of it!
An MDM solution can allow you to control individually and/or collectively the information that enters and exits these devices. To control where Internet connections must go ( implementation of a VPN), and to control countless technical parameters, modify them, synchronize emails, to be able to consult and read them of course – this is where the issue of confidentiality for the employee will come into play.
And also, to set up marketing operations, targeted messages to all employees, or only to some of them via pushes, private messages… In short: the company has complete control of the device! A complete management that is not necessarily to the user’s liking, but which will tend to reassure the company.
Winner: MDM
Flexibility
The bad side of the “absolute control” of devices by companies, in the case you’re opting for an MDM solution, is that the employee won’t feel empowered, and won’t think he can do what he wants with his device (which won’t be his device, by the way). That means that he will spend less time with the device, and maybe be less productive.
There are situations where the implementation of MDM solutions has been totally boycotted by employees! Indeed, at a time where a large number of executives and company employees have opted for BYOD (Bring your own device), we are facing a fairly simple observation: MAM solutions offer much more flexibility for users.
If companies tend to favour control, this is a mistake, and it’s clear that MDM solutions are much more restrictive for the user. But it seems clear that you have to be attentive to the needs and desires of employees, so as not to lose them.
Winner: MAM
UX (User Experience)
In the era of BYOD, it seems that the vast majority of employees are moving towards ease, simplicity, the solution with as little friction as possible. They do not love a completely closed device, which does not belong to them and where they feel like they are constantly being watched. MDM solutions, even if they guarantee the confidentiality of users’ personal data (so as MAM), are now often considered – and perceived by users – as (too) intrusive.
Obviously, even if the company may like it, this isn’t the right solution for successful deployment and smooth adoption. On the contrary, a MAM solution, which focuses on apps and on a part of the device, will be accepted by users much more quickly. Of course, in some cases, such as those where employees work in special conditions that require special technical features (e. g. resistance to heat, cold, falls, etc.), it will almost be mandatory to opt for an MDM solution – and in this case, the user will also understand this. However, if this isn’t the case, and the company chooses MDM for reasons that the employee won’t consider essential, it is very likely that adoption will be slower and more obvious.
Winner: MAM
Conclusion
As you probably know, there is no right solution – however, there are better solutions than others, depending on the circumstances. The role of the team in charge of deploying EMM solutions will, therefore, be to find the solution that:
– Meets technical requirements
– Meets security requirements
– Allows for quick and easy deployment
– Be quickly adopted by the teams