Devicie supports a new approach to UEM

Gone are the days when employees solely worked from company-provided devices and only within the office walls. 

As we continue to adapt to the post-COVID workplace, more and more businesses are shifting to accommodate employees working from various types of devices and from various remote locations. 

And, Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) plays a significant role in securing and managing those devices and IT environments. 

As a collection of technologies that enable companies to better manage, secure and monitor numerous devices and operating systems from a single dashboard, UEM has emerged as the next big evolutionary step of endpoint management. 

One EUM gaining increased attention is Microsoft after being recognised by Gartner® as a Leader in the 2022 Magic Quadrant™ for Unified Endpoint Management Tools. 

It's exciting, but not surprising, to see Microsoft shoot to the far top right corner in Gartner’s latest UEM Magic Quadrant. After all, Microsoft Endpoint Manager has tremendous potential for security and productivity in a hybrid working environment. 

While it’s great to see UEM gaining traction in the marketplace, it’s important to clarify and understand the technology streams now included under the UEM banner. It's also important to know where UEM falls short and how to overcome those roadblocks.  

UEM in the shifting modern workplace 

Formal definitions aside, in the context of end-user device management, UEM is essentially the convergence of two technology streams that were previously considered separate–mobile device management (MDM) and end-user compute (EUC).  

UEM offers a single management interface and reporting view across both disciplines, consolidating endpoint device management in a way that has never been done before. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, UEM was in many ways the lifeline organisations needed to enable a mobile workforce supporting BYOD effectively overnight.  

For IT managers, it simplified the ability to centrally manage multiple device types at scale. 

And, with many organisations now embracing remote work as a new norm, the popularity of UEM is unlikely to wane anytime soon.  

In fact, Gartner predicts more than half of organisations will (and arguably must) consolidate to a unified console for endpoint management and security tasks by 2024. This represents a significant increase from fewer than 5 per cent in 2020. 

Not quite ‘UEM to the rescue’ 

There’s no doubt UEM has been a very positive step in the development of enterprise mobility, offering better management of a wider range of devices. 

However, I think it is fair to say all of today’s UEM solutions are a combination of products sitting on a shelf. A mishmash of technologies – some with enormous potential – but with little cohesion. 

As analysts and customers repeatedly point out, every UEM solution – even those in the Magic Quadrant – has significant delivery challenges, including the need for specialised skills together with management and infrastructure overheads. They also often have sizable security gaps, including risks associated with application patching and management. This is coupled with challenges in the deployment of defence in depth security across all devices. 

That being said, there has been big progress in the advancement of cloud technologies, agentless solutions, and automation. 

If there’s one silver lining from the disruption of workplaces due to the pandemic, it’s that it is now much more feasible, and affordable, for organisations to secure and manage end-user devices in this BYOD world. 

Automation as a complement to UEM 

Organisations can take their UEM to the next level by leveraging technologies that complement (and not necessarily replace) their existing technology solutions, to drive significant IT efficiencies as well as security and reporting benefits. 

We are often asked where Devicie sits in the UEM landscape.  

The answer is that Devicie both complements and enables UEM. 

Devicie supports UEM by enabling organisations of all sizes to maximise the value of Microsoft Intune. 

Specifically, Devicie automates the customisation, configuration, and deployment of Intune for management across all end-user devices.  

Devicie also facilitates ongoing deployment of layered native security in line with best practice frameworks across end-user devices. This means Devicie can deliver multiple layers of security to protect multiple threat vectors with minimal hands-on IT effort, timing delay, and with no agents required. 

Importantly, Devicie achieves all this quietly in the background, so end-users can work productively, uninterrupted, regardless of their device or location. Further, as the Devicie platform automates device management as a service, it virtually eliminates this time-consuming task for overstretched IT teams. 

Devicie as a co-pilot 

Think of Devicie as the co-pilot on the flight deck of your UEM aircraft 

By harnessing Devicie as the co-pilot, organisations can maximise the return on their Intune investment to achieve a modern workplace where security and productivity on employee devices not only coexist but thrive. 

The result is essentially a high-performing SOE ‘as a service’, where organisations subscribe to an end-to-end device security and management cloud-native environment and solution—rather than build their own bespoke infrastructure.  

This environment facilitates UEM outcomes that are better for security, productivity and end-user experience and effortless for IT teams to set up and manage.