10-Minute Enterprise Mobility Masterclass #3 With Alex Kalish, Chief Strategy and Solutions Officer at Stratix
Mobile Solutions Aren't Fire and Forget
About the Class With Alex Kalish, Chief Strategy and Solutions Officer
As mobile solutions play ever-larger roles in business strategies, organizations have learned that supporting mobile isn't the same as traditional IT for a lot of reasons. End users are often dispersed, and IT teams aren't as familiar with the devices, operating systems, and apps. There's a learning curve. Deployment, return, and repair logistics are more complicated and require more resources and scale. While IT support may have been mainly reactive in the past, mobile is so integral to how people do their jobs now that there has to be a sufficient underlying level of support to ensure minimal downtime and prevent loss of productivity. A lot can be automated, but there's still the need for the human touch in many areas to ensure a good user experience.
In this class, we'll look at the components required for a comprehensive support strategy and best practices for implementing them. They include endpoint management, asset management, and 24/7 support channels.
Alex Kalish is the Chief Strategy and Solutions Officer at Stratix and brings nearly 20 years of experience working in strategy, corporate development and finance functions for global technology companies. Connect with Alex on LinkedIn.
Automate Everything You Can with Endpoint Management
Benefits of Endpoint Management
The best first step in supporting mobile devices and end users is to do it proactively. You can do that with a good endpoint management solution that helps you keep devices healthy wherever they are and automate routine IT processes. It's a rapidly evolving area, and there's crossover in the ways different software companies use the same terms, so it can get a little confusing. Broadly speaking, Mobile Device Management—or MDM—is typically device-centric. Enterprise Mobility Management—or EMM—is more user-centric. The latter is especially important if your organization has a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy and you need to control and secure what users have access to regardless of the device they're using.
While enterprises often understand they need endpoint management, there's some confusion around what's in solutions like Mobile Device Management (MDM) and Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM).
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Selecting the right MDM/EMM solution for your organization boils down to what you need it to do, so don't get too hung up on what it's called. Focus on the features instead. Here are some of the things you'll likely want:
What to Consider when Choosing an MDM/EMM solution
The features you require depend on the needs of your organization and benefits like efficiency and security. Here are some questions to consider:
What devices do you need to protect?
Any specific capabilities?
How easy is it to use the software?
Is the admin panel user-friendly and uncomplicated?
What are your application needs?
What data needs to be protected?
MDM and EMM platforms require specific knowledge to implement and manage. They're quite complex. Misconfigurations and mistakes can lead to significant problems for organizations. It's not an area where an internal IT team should be expected to "just figure it out"—especially as so much is riding on getting it right. You can easily get the required expertise by partnering with a managed mobile services provider that can help you pick the right solution and then aid with the implementation and management.
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Podcast
Alex explains what mobile first means and its transformative value for organizations—including significant efficiency and productivity advantages. Listen to Episode >
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What are the challenges that come with the Android platform and what enterprises can do to improve security?
Make Your Mobile Strategy Better with a Big Picture View
Why Asset Management is so Important
While an endpoint management platform gives you a level of visibility around each device's location and its health, a comprehensive support strategy should go further to include a robust asset management component. For example, at Stratix, we leverage our proprietary itrac360 system to get all the data required to keep mobile solutions running smoothly.
Good asset management gives you a cradle-to-grave view of every device and its status—including procurement, provisioning, activation, repair, technical support history, and decommissioning. Systems like itrac360 offer a single-pane-of-glass view of all the chess pieces in your mobile environment so you can quickly see its overall health and any issues that need to be addressed. Alerts can be set up so that you're warned when something needs attention.
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The data on trends, repair volumes, and asset distribution gives you key performance indicators like device effectiveness and spare pool levels. That informs purchasing decisions, drives support strategy tweaks, and gives insights on overall program success. Real-time reporting of help desk call volume, ticket status, and other pertinent information—for example—is invaluable for support management.
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Listen to Ross explain how when you have full visibility of your total costs, you can make better strategic decisions that'll bring you a higher return on your mobile technology investment.
An Expert to Turn to Makes All the Difference
What Makes a Good Help Desk
Automation is the first step in support, but there are going to be issues that you can't automate your way out of. That's when you need channels for people to get effective help quickly and easily. Your support strategy should focus on the end-user experience and quick resolution to minimize frustration and downtime wherever possible.
The aim for help desks should be first contact resolution wherever possible. Hiring knowledgeable agents and giving them the right training is key. They need to thoroughly understand the devices and software being used along with your operating environment and workflows. At Stratix, we keep our help desk on-shore and don't outsource so that we can ensure that we have the best people available.
If you have a complex environment with multiple mobile solutions in use, then make sure the right agents are matched with the right problems. Don't leave folks on hold or transfer them around in search of the right expert. Your help desk should be staffed so you have the capacity to minimize wait times. Suppose it becomes known through your organization that calling the help desk involves long waits. In that case, people will be reluctant to call, and issues that affect productivity and the use of mobile solutions will snowball.
To efficiently handle operations, using ITSM (IT Service Management) software such as Service Now is a must. It helps manage tickets and resources and provides essential metrics around the effectiveness of your team. The platform allows you to automate and aggregate ticketing through multiple channels like phone, chat, or email. Tickets can be prioritized, and the system is even smart enough (using AI) to route problems to the agent(s) best qualified to handle them.
Because your help desk is so important to the success of your mobile solutions, you want to measure its effectiveness. Some key performance indicators are first contact resolution rate, Average Speed of Answer (ASA), and customer satisfaction. Follow up on resolved tickets and ask end users about their experiences and if they're happy with the solution they got. You'll learn a lot. Something else to track is agent satisfaction. Good people are hard to find, and you want to ensure that you're giving them the tools, culture, and incentives that will keep them around.
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Learn how a help desk works, what pieces are required, and the things organizations need to consider the ensure that their employees get the right amount of support to keep them happy and productive.
Why It's Important
Enterprise-scale mobile solutions are not fire and forget. They require constant care and attention to keep them running smoothly. Things are going to happen, but you want to ensure that they have as minimal an effect as possible on operations, productivity, and user experiences.
With proactive device management, asset tracking, and a skilled and effective help desk, you can achieve that.
A well-thought-out comprehensive enterprise mobility support system is your defense against unexpected and unnecessary problems that could ruin all the time and money your organization has put into its mobility strategy.
Learn how this leading carrier migrated from DIY device management and legacy devices to a modern managed mobile technology for its drivers.
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