Modern Management Methodology: Three Reasons You Need Flexible Solutions

As we approach the end of 2021’s first quarter, experts say we’ll continue to see a rapid acceleration of the shift to incorporating modern management methodologies. Ken Galvin, senior product manager at Quest Software, shares his thoughts. 

2020 saw organizations increase their focus on ensuring a more robust security posture to support the move to a global remote workforce. While security should always be a top priority – this increased focus and the new challenge of employees working outside secured office networks has put more pressure on IT teams to secure the changing environment. 

The number of devices someone might employ to do their job or complete a task remotely has further expressed the need for unified endpoint management (UEM). UEM is critical in this remote era because users are frequently working from a combination of traditional and mobile devices. Not to mention that organizations are increasingly incorporating IoT and other new technologies. 

As environments evolve, the need for modernized management to secure and manage corporate resources and Bring Your Own Devices (BYOD) is starting to gain more attention. By adding modern management methods to their lifecycle asset management, organizations can more easily enroll and inventory mobile devices and computers that do not require traditional management, as is the case for servers, non-computers, and some computers.

Each company is in a different state of transition from traditional to modern management. Businesses should look for flexible management solutions that meet them wherever they are within that transition. 

Here are three reasons why.

1. Empowers Faster Distribution

When organizations were forced to shift to working and learning remotely, many were not prepared, especially companies with small budgets and schools with a lack of resources. IT teams had to quickly react to repurpose or acquire devices to support their staff, employees, and students. Leveraging modern management tools for device enrollment and distribution helped organizations enable these resources more quickly — and ensured that they were being distributed with the appropriate policies and security systems in place.

Organizations that instituted a modernized UEM strategy with the shift to remote work were equipped to manage the rapidly changing environment. With COVID-19 vaccines beginning their first phase of distribution, the possibility of hybrid work environments in 2021 is becoming more realistic. This means we can expect schools to increase exploration of balancing remote and in-person teaching, further adoption and enhancement of telehealth services, and organizations with employees working from corporate offices or anywhere, all of which will be done intentionally versus a crisis response.

IT departments that have not yet turned to modern management will need to accelerate their efforts to solve the unique challenges of a hybrid workforce. Doing so will help streamline device distribution and management and help lower costs and mitigate risks.

Learn More: How Endpoint Security Can Help Enterprises Tackle IT Strain 

2. Improves Productivity

By incorporating a modern management approach into their overall management approach, IT teams can offer complete visibility to keep devices secure and compliant without compromising productivity. Sustaining productivity when going remote at the beginning of 2020 was a top priority for many organizations, particularly those that did not have a remote working plan in place, citing loss of productivity without being in a physical office. Those that had or instituted modernized management were able to ensure that the unexpected transition to all-remote happened smoothly, saving time, resources, and stress for IT teams while allowing users to complete tasks as they would in the office. 

As more companies announce plans to implement hybrid work (in-office and remote) permanently, such as Twitter and Shopify – IT needs to be confident that users can be productive no matter what environments they’re operating in. IT teams that lack confidence and are late to adopting a modern management strategy will need to reconsider their organization’s data protection plans.

Learn More: Best Practices for Endpoint Security and Patching 

3. The Natural Progression

The truth is, the industry was already headed in the direction of leveraging modernized management as part of a company’s overall UEM strategy. Even before the pandemic forced organizations to turn remote, many of them were already using desktops, tablets, and mobile devices in their everyday work. The only difference now is that people are taking these devices home – some of them for the first time.

This is also true for AI technology. Organizations think the adoption of new endpoint AI technology is a  new concept. Organizations have already been deploying and leveraging a level of business intelligence and AI technology across the business. 

It’s clear that 2021 will bring a renewed focus on endpoint management within enterprise networks. Though the industry was already moving toward this, the pandemic further expedited the implementation of modern management. Each business is in a different state of transition from traditional to modern management and businesses should look for flexible solutions to management that support wherever they are in that transition. 

We’ll see the modern management trend continue to grow, supported by the ongoing adoption of remote work. Going forward, being proactive in the ability to image or provision as needed to support a hybrid or fully remote workforce is critical in automating IT management, allowing for a better internal customer experience for the user community.  

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