Mobile device management (MDM) is a proven, cost-effective solution to meet an organization’s needs for security and control.

However, as organizations scale up, or need to manage risk or stay compliant, they also need to manage costs. A company’s smartphones, tablets, laptops, and other connected devices—and the apps and data plans associated with those devices—are expenses, which can quickly escalate.

Companies want employees to be as productive as possible, as this affects the business’ bottom line. Luckily, today’s IT manager or IT service provider can prove the ROI and overall value of MDM to the organization. Whether it’s saving time or money, or mitigating risk, the benefits of implementing an MDM solution in an organization can be quantified.

Faster Device Set-Up Times

First off, MDM solves a common organizational challenge and prevents the loss of the ultimate, non-renewable resource: time.

The average time to setup a phone without MDM is 60 minutes. With MDM and enablers like Apple DEP and Android Zero-Touch Enrollment, the time can drop to 30 minutes or to even as low as 5 minutes—representing a savings of 92 percent.

YoungCapital is a Dutch HR and recruitment technology firm that purchases more than 400 phones annually and has experienced the time and associated cost savings with MDM. By using Apple DEP and MDM, the new device is already set up out of the box, saving YoungCapital about 200 hours annually on setting up employees’ phones, with zero errors. In addition to saving time for the IT manager on the initial set-up, employees can get to work faster, without worrying about the different apps to be installed or security settings to be configured.

Reduced Visits to the IT Department

Further on the time-saving benefits of MDM is the reduction of on-site visits or in-person meetings with the IT department.

MDM’s features allow the IT professional to remotely lock and wipe a device, reset a passcode, or deploy or remove apps. The ability to remotely manage phones saves countless hours in lost productivity and travel time.

For some remote employees who work far from a company’s offices, MDM provides a better alternative to shipping devices to the IT department.

Additionally, remote management, including deploying business policies, automating installations, and enforcing configurations, reduces human errors.

Savings on Mobile Data

While time savings certainly translate directly to cost savings, especially when considering the salaries for IT managers or fees for IT service providers, MDM also delivers direct cost savings when factoring in data usage. MDM can ensure that devices under management have app usage restrictions, saving on data costs.

For example, a company can restrict access to apps like Netflix or other streaming services, which consume a great deal of data.

Such control features also ensure that employees are only using applications you’ve approved in advance.

Stronger Security, Mitigated Risk

MDM also acts as a type of insurance plan. MDM’s Location Tracking feature helps organizations recover lost or stolen phones. About 10 percent of phones become lost and five percent of phones are stolen – with a 50 percent found rate for each.

With MDM’s Location Tracking feature, phones can be recovered faster, reducing employee downtime and saving the organization from having to re-purchase devices. Of course, the more expensive the phone, the greater the potential loss to the organization—though mitigated, with MDM.

MDM’s security features also lessen the risk of data loss with lost or stolen devices, leading to potential compliance violations, such as those involving regulations like GDPR and HIPAA. MDM protects company data by separating business and personal apps, enforcing safe passcodes and screen locks, and encrypting all confidential content stored on the device.

As yet another benefit of MDM, Wi-Fi configuration profiles can be used to deploy strong wireless network settings to managed devices. In this way, for example, employees working in remote locations are prevented from accidentally connecting to public, non-secured Wi-Fi., which would be a risk to the organization.

In sum, the ROI of MDM to the organization can be proven. As a timesaver or simply an insurance plan, the value of implementing an MDM solution in an organization can be measured.