Device management at scale presents significant challenges for IT teams using Microsoft Intune. While Intune offers powerful capabilities out of the box, many organizations struggle with its complexity, especially when managing multiple operating systems and enforcing consistent security policies. This guide explores the most common Intune challenges and offers practical solutions to streamline your device management strategy.
Answer: Intune's complexity stems from its broad capabilities that weren't designed to automate every process out of the box, leading to manual overhead.
Quick Context:
Complexity often arises when you're juggling multiple OS platforms, security requirements, and team workflows—all within a single MDM. Intune is powerful, but it wasn't built to automate every single process out of the box, leading many organizations to add manual steps.
Why It Matters:
By streamlining workflows and introducing automation where Intune falls short (patching, compliance checks, or app distribution), you reduce manual oversight and minimize misconfigurations. Think of it as letting Intune focus on what it does best—while complementary tools handle the rest.
Answer: Finance, healthcare, and tech organizations all face similar Intune management issues including limited reporting and maintaining consistent device configurations.
Quick Context:
Managing Intune at scale is a common struggle across industries—finance, healthcare, tech, etc. Pain points include limited reporting, ensuring up-to-date policies, and maintaining uniform configurations across different device types.
Why It Matters:
Knowing you're not alone helps you benchmark solutions and strategies. Many of the headaches you're experiencing have been addressed by others, which means best practices and proven tools already exist.
Answer: Many organizations successfully extend Intune's capabilities by implementing complementary platforms and scripts.
Quick Context:
Many organizations use complementary platforms or scripts to extend Intune's native capabilities. This could include prebuilt policy templates, automated patching schedules, and unified dashboards that merge data from multiple sources.
Why It Matters:
This extra layer of automation helps deploy devices faster, reduces manual tasks, and delivers a consistent user experience—all of which keep day-to-day complexity in check.
Answer: Successful multi-platform management requires centralized policy enforcement across Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android devices.
Quick Context:
Centralize policy enforcement and reporting so that Windows, macOS, iOS, or Android devices follow the same fundamental standards. Having a single set of unified dashboards and automated workflows is crucial.
Why It Matters:
Managing one platform is tough enough; multiply that by two, three, or four OSs, and manual management becomes chaotic. Automation + cross-platform support = consistent security and simpler administration.
Answer: Automation through Intune APIs can significantly reduce manual tasks and improve consistency in device management.
Quick Context:
Platforms that build on Intune's API can apply standard policies at scale, force security rules automatically, and handle routine OS updates behind the scenes. This lowers human error and keeps devices secure and compliant in the background.
Why It Matters:
True automation is the linchpin of modern device management, especially for organizations with large or distributed workforces.
Answer: Modern MDM solutions offer customizable dashboards with real-time compliance data to identify issues before they escalate.
Quick Context:
Modern solutions often offer customizable dashboards that pull real-time data on patch status, security policy adherence, and device health. This granularity helps you detect trends or compliance issues before they escalate.
Why It Matters:
Robust analytics let you spot vulnerabilities quickly and show leadership how device management contributes to broader IT goals—like risk reduction and cost savings.
Answer: Enforcing baseline configurations and implementing real-time compliance checks can significantly reduce downtime from misconfigurations.
Quick Context:
Enforcing "known good" baselines and running real-time compliance checks identifies issues early. Automated remediation can revert devices to a secure state if a policy or patch goes off track.
Why It Matters:
Downtime hits productivity and risks security. A proactive, automated approach fixes small errors before they trigger large-scale disruptions.
Answer: While Intune covers many bases, your specific challenges might require additional tools or even an alternative MDM solution.
Quick Context:
Intune covers many bases but might require additional layers for deeper automation or advanced analytics. Evaluating how each tool addresses your specific challenges—like multi-OS support or real-time compliance—clarifies if you should augment or switch.
Why It Matters:
It's not about ditching Intune, but about finding the right solution that aligns with your unique pain points. Sometimes that's a complementary platform; other times, an alternative MDM might fit better.
Answer: Cloud-first MDM solutions excel at keeping remote devices compliant with features like self-service portals.
Quick Context:
Cloud-first or hybrid MDMs excel at keeping remote devices compliant, often with self-service portals that reduce IT's workload. Some let you push updates even if devices aren't on the corporate network.
Why It Matters:
As remote work grows, you need a tool that enforces policy everywhere, whether a device is on-site, off-site, or in transit. This ensures consistent security and fewer gaps.
Managing device ecosystems with Microsoft Intune presents challenges, but with the right approach and complementary tools, you can significantly reduce complexity. By automating routine tasks, implementing consistent cross-platform policies, and leveraging real-time reporting, your IT team can focus on strategic initiatives rather than daily device management firefighting.
Whether you choose to enhance your existing Intune deployment or explore alternative MDM solutions, prioritize automation, scalability, and user experience to ensure your device management strategy aligns with your broader IT objectives.
Ready to optimize your device management strategy?
Looking for more insights on streamlining your device management? Contact our team to discuss your specific Intune challenges and explore tailored solutions for your organization.