The benefits of mobile device management in enterprise environment

No Thumbnail Available
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Perustieteiden korkeakoulu | Master's thesis
Date
2014
Department
Major/Subject
Tietotekniikka
Mcode
T-86
Degree programme
Language
en
Pages
vi + 69 s. + liitt. 7 s.
Series
Abstract
In the past decade, the shift to mobility was witnessed as the main focus of information technology (IT) development. Mobile devices, represented by smartphones and tablets, have been rapidly adopted in enterprise environments. Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) and mobile applications are also gaining their prevalence. However, such mobility trend creates challenges for different stakeholders in enterprise environments. Security risks and increasing costs are major concerns for enterprises; for IT management, the diversity and complexity of mobile devices escalate both workload and difficulty; the lack of efficient and centralized enterprise resources access approach limits employees to better utilize mobile devices for work. Therefore, mobile device management (MDM), a set of technologies enforcing enterprise security policies and enabling enterprises to deploy and support corporate resources to mobile devices, is designed to overcome the challenges. Nevertheless, the benefits of MDM in enterprise environment are not fully recognized and there is little research about the measurement of the value of MDM. It has hindered the further adoption of MOM. In this study, by interviewing four companies from different industries: Nokia, OP-Pohjola, Orion, and IBM, the benefits of MDM are analysed from different perspectives, and an economic model is proposed for value quantification. The study result reveals that MDM can theoretically benefit enterprises in multiple aspects, and it is a primary and necessary solution for modem enterprise mobility. Moreover, some open issues in the practical implementation of MDM and its future development are also discussed.
Description
Supervisor
Hämäläinen, Matti
Thesis advisor
Wang, Yafeng
Keywords
mobile device management, enterprise mobility, IT consumerization, bring-your-own-device
Other note
Citation