More and more people are traveling and working from countries far away from their offices, living the life of a digital nomad. Businesses are also expanding beyond their home country exploring overseas markets.

To keep up with this rapidly changing world of work that is becoming borderless, organizations need to reconsider their talent management strategy to leverage an international talent pool and thrive in this new era of globalization. But implementing this strategy comes with challenges.

This blog post discusses how the challenges associated with implementing a global employee mobility strategy can be tackled with an effective device lifecycle management solution.

Device Lifecycle Management (DLM) is a system for managing devices at every stage of their life, from procurement and deployment to maintenance, support, and eventual disposal or replacement.

DLM involves policies, processes, and procedures for managing devices throughout their lifespan. A DLM solution typically includes the following:

• Procurement of devices

• Enrollment of the devices in an inventory management system,

• Configuration of the security settings

• Creation of accounts, allocation of privileges, and access rights

• Delivery of the ready-to-use device to the employee

• Deallocation and recovery of the device at the end of service or lifecycle

• Repair and refurbishment of used devices

• Secure storage and warehousing of procured or deallocated devices

• Secure disposal of devices at the end of the device lifecycle

DLM may also include device performance and security management, which ensures that the devices give optimal performance and are up to date with the latest security patches.

Comprehensive DLM includes all the activities in different phases from planning and purchasing to retiring of devices. It includes end-to-end management including activities such as requisition requests, purchase orders, tracking, shipping, and warehousing.

Effective DLM helps organizations reduce the cost of managing and maintaining their fleet of devices. It gives them visibility and control over their devices resulting in improved device security, performance, longevity, and more importantly, budgeting.

Device Lifecycle Management (DLM) and Mobile Device Lifecycle Management (MDLM) are similar and are often used interchangeably. The main difference between them is that while DLM covers all types of devices such as desktops, laptops, printers, servers, network equipment, etc., MDLM covers only mobile devices, namely, laptops, tablets, and smartphones.

An effective MDLM solution ensures that the right device with the right configurations and application reaches the employees at the right time, no matter where in the world the employees are located. MDLM also includes ensuring functionality, troubleshooting, and repair services.

MDLM is more relevant today for most businesses, especially in light of the growing adoption of remote work and a globally mobile workforce. It offers organizations a cost-effective way of managing devices, ensuring performance, and enhancing security through better visibility of the devices throughout their lifecycle.

Device Lifecycle Management has become a critical component of the asset management strategy of modern organizations. Its role in helping to optimize the allocation of resources cannot be overstated. Additionally, it is also instrumental in enhancing security and supporting compliance with relevant regulations such as SOC 2, HIPAA, etc.

Managing mobile devices is a complex and difficult task. It involves close collaboration among multiple stakeholders, namely IT, Human Resources, Procurement, Finance, Accounting, and Administration. Without DLM it is next to impossible, at least at scale, to have visibility and control over the fleet of mobile devices throughout their lifecycle.

Here are the key benefits of Device Lifecycle Management:

1. Better Inventory Management

An effective device lifecycle management solution provides real-time asset tracking, which not only gives more visibility into your inventory but also enables better management of device health and performance.

Effective inventory management ensures that the right devices are allocated to the right employees so that their needs are adequately met. It also ensures better return on investment (ROI) on the capital invested by ensuring that the devices are being used effectively and efficiently.

2. Enhanced Security

Device lifecycle management helps improve security by ensuring proper configuration and security settings on all deployed devices. In fact, making security controls such as Mobile Device Management (MDM) and Identity and Access Management (IAM) part of your DLM system ensures consistency in the application of security settings, access rights, and privilege allocation.

3. Improved Risk Mitigation And Compliance

DLM gives you visibility over your entire fleet of devices at every stage of their lifecycle. This makes it easy to audit security and privacy controls such as the installation of security updates and patches, enforcement of password policy, and the disposal of end-of-life devices. Therefore, DLM plays an important role not only in reducing business risks but also in meeting the requirements of regulatory compliance

4. Leverage Global Employee Mobility

Today's job market, especially for tech talent, is highly competitive. Organizations that hire locally get access to only a small pool of talent. On the other hand, remote work gives organizations the flexibility to recruit the best talent from all over the world.

However, this global hiring needs to be accompanied by efficient device deployment and seamless onboarding in a remote environment. DLM is the only solution that provides truly location-agnostic services for remote employees, thus removing geographical barriers to device management and facilitating global mobility. 

Global Employee Mobility refers to organizational policies that enable employees to work from off-site locations anywhere across the globe. Global employee mobility is concerned with a wide variety of tactical and logistical issues including legal and tax compliance, onboarding and offboarding, employee engagement, and device deployment and technical support.

Traditionally, global mobility was limited to business travel and short-term assignments. But of late, it has become a strategic policy aimed at workforce management and talent retention in response to the emerging trends of telecommuting and remote work.

A global employee mobility strategy is important for organizations as it allows them to keep up with the emerging trends of remote and hybrid work environments. In the current scenario, global employee mobility is important because of three main reasons.

First, it enables organizations to find the best talent on a global scale. Organizations are no longer restricted to a small local pool of talent to hire from. Thanks to the near total digitization of work, transition from traditional licensing to SaaS applications, and migration of corporate workloads to the cloud, organizations can hire employees to work from anywhere in the world. This access to a global workforce, allows organizations to create remote teams that are as efficient if not more than traditional on-site teams.

Second, global mobility enables organizations to reduce operational costs. With employees working remotely, organizations can benefit from lower rent and utilities. In addition, employer responsibilities such as parking, travel reimbursements, etc. will also be lower. Moreover, if the organization hires in countries with a lower cost of living, they will be able to save on wages while still offering attractive salaries and benefits.

Third, global mobility can help with employee retention. By 2025, 75% of the workforce will be comprised of Millenials, who lay a lot of importance on the flexibility and mobility offered by remote work. In addition, global mobility does away with the hassles of immigration and visas, making it easier to create diverse and inclusive teams that fuel creativity and innovation.

As organizations seek to effectively leverage global employee mobility, they will face many challenges, the chief among them being deploying and managing devices across the globe at scale. Device lifecycle management is the only location-agnostic solution that can effectively manage devices, from procurement to disposal.

Although device deployment appears to be a simple task, it is, in fact, complex and time-consuming and involves a bevy of activities like procurement, logistics, shipping, receiving, warehousing, insurance, etc. Managing all the associated tasks for a large number of devices is overwhelming even for a large organization. A DLM solution simplifies device management by bringing all these activities under one single system.

A DLM solution streamlines the processes of ordering, tracking, and managing devices, allowing the organization to improve efficiency and reduce costs. In addition, it also gives real-time visibility of the mobile devices, making it easier to plan capital investment and budget for new devices.

In addition to improving device security, DLM also enhances data protection, which is critical in a remote environment. It facilitates enforcing policies and procedures for device configuration, access control, and data protection, making it easier to maintain a secure and compliant corporate environment.

Lastly, global mobility is all about bringing new employees onto the team. Giving the new hires a great onboarding experience in a remote environment can be quite a challenge. DLM gives your new hires a seamless and effective onboarding experience by ensuring the delivery of the right device, with the right configurations, and at the right time.

Conclusion

For organizations that have or plan on having a remote workforce, investing in a device lifecycle management (DLM) solution is essential. It streamlines procurement, improves security, facilitates compliance, simplifies onboarding and offboarding, and provides remote device management and support. All of this results in the effective and efficient management of devices, driving growth and at the same time saving costs.

How does your organization manage device lifecycle management? Do you have clear visibility over all your mobile devices? Reach out to us by clicking the button below to learn how we can help you manage your fleet of devices efficiently and cost-effectively.

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