What is Unified Endpoint Management (UEM)?

Rapid digitization has increased the dependence on IT, putting pressure on businesses to manage and monitor a variety of endpoints. Even small organizations oversee anywhere from hundreds to thousands of endpoints for everyday operations, including desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and even virtual solutions. Organizations need a unified endpoint management (UEM) solution that provides greater visibility into all endpoints for better device usage and health monitoring, vulnerabilities and patch management, cybersecurity, and all other essential IT functions. Read on to understand the significance of investing in a UEM and why it is an indispensable tool for organizations of all sizes. 

What is Unified Endpoint Management (UEM)?

Unified Endpoint Management, or UEM, is a comprehensive approach to managing and securing all the endpoint devices in an enterprise network. UEM streamlines and simplifies the management of diverse endpoint devices, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktops, wearables, VR/AR, and other Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

UEM operates from a unified console, irrespective of the operating system or geographical location. By streamlining endpoint security, UEM empowers security and IT teams to safeguard all endpoint devices efficiently, using a singular tool in a uniform manner.

What are the features of Unified Endpoint Management?

Some of the distinctive features of UEM are:

• Software and OS deployment: UEM solutions allow automated software and operating system deployment in all the devices across an organization’s network from a central console without any manual intervention.
• Patch management and update installation: With UEM’s automatic patch management and update installation features, fixing a vulnerability across all endpoints within an organization’s network takes minutes.
• Policy enforcement: The centralized console in UEM software allows IT admins to enroll and preconfigure the managed devices and ensure that all the organizational policies are seamlessly enforced on all devices. The data isolation and application control capabilities of UEM help IT admins ensure that only authorized users get access to company resources.
• Threat detection and mitigation: As device monitoring becomes efficient with UEM software, it enables early detection of threats, enabling organizations to mitigate them before they cause any damage.
• Identity and access management: UEM solutions come with in-built or integrated multifactor authentication (MFA) and single sign-on (SSO) features, enabling users to authenticate only once after the device has been offline for a set period rather than trying to open a new app each time. While this ensures security, it makes accessing resources easy for users, thus aiding productivity.

Benefits of Unified Endpoint Management

Implementing an Endpoint Management System allows any organization to ensure a seamless and secure growth strategy. The most valuable benefits of UEM software are enhanced security, improved efficiency, better compliance, and cost savings.

Enhanced Security
UEM software enhances security through centralized security policies, such as conditional user access, automated rule enforcement, and threat detection and response. UEM systems also employ zero-trust security policies, meaning your system will always require verification measures to access company data. Incorporating these security measures through UEM software prevents data breaches and ensures all company data is kept secure across all devices.

Improved Efficiency
UEM software significantly improves efficiency by automating routine tasks, simplifying operations, and unifying overall systems. IT teams no longer need to juggle multiple tools and interfaces when all devices and systems are managed through a single platform. Instead, patch management, software distribution, and reporting become automated processes.

Better Compliance
Compliance is one of the biggest drains on most IT staff. Between tracking, distributing, and managing licenses and manually processing audit information, IT professionals often spend hours on compliance issues. Unified endpoint management software promotes better overall compliance through regulatory tracking and automatically facilitating audit readiness.

Cost Savings
The cost savings facilitated by a UEM solution are often quite significant – from both an up-front and proactive long-term cost perspective.

In terms of up-front costs, allowing for non-company-sponsored device use and cloud-based solutions cuts down on both hardware and software costs. A single UEM platform provides greater efficiency alongside dramatically reducing IT overhead and staffing costs. Lastly, a UEM system can improve end users’ productivity, creating a better time-to-deliverable ratio.

In the long run, a Unified Endpoint Management solution can yield savings that prevent sensitive, proprietary information from being compromised. A UEM solution offers added security against data breaches. A recent study uncovered that the average cost per data breach in the U.S. is $9.48 million – a figure that could prove incredibly costly to start-ups and SMBs. Taking a proactive approach to safeguarding data with a UEM solution rolled out to employees can help prevent breaches and give businesses the tools they need to act quickly to thwart a malware or cyber attack.

Why should you consider investing in UEM?

The design of Unified Endpoint Management comes through being a one-integrated solution to companies whether its size to see all state of endpoints. It seems promising for all levels but let’s explore why you should consider investing in such a thing.

• Turn to hybrid or full-time work from home without having any worries: Many countries worldwide have come up with a new business model of allowing employees to work no matter where. Now, we are hearing about a hybrid workplace that includes full-time and from-home workers. Other companies are hiring overseas employees, and all the team works virtually. But how does it even work? Is that a real job or a real company? Yes, it is. Platforms like UEM make it easier for everyone by adopting a pane-of-glass way of management. Employers can see through all connected devices from a single tool.
• Enhance the security of all remote devices: Having a low level of protection could cause a lot of problems, especially when sharing data and access points with other remote devices. UEM will guarantee compliance across its entire workforce, reduce security gaps, and discover potential threats targeting your enterprise data.
• Cut unnecessary expenses: Undoubtedly, UEM is a money-saver. It provides a one-centralized platform for managing a wide range of devices and removing all hassle and costs consumed by other separate apps.