One thing is certain: the widespread use of mobile telephony is now a tangible reality, given new professional practices and employees’ expectations. In this context, effectively managing mobile assets is essential and must be based on an industrial approach. Mobile asset managers must ask the right questions and evolve their management practices to handle increasingly large and complex inventories. While many criteria need to be evaluated, here are four particularly critical factors.
Effectively controlling costs
Deploying mobile assets entails significant expenditures. Therefore, finely managing costs is crucial. While the cost of acquiring devices is an obvious consideration, it’s not the only one. A substantial portion of the challenge lies in communication expenses and analyzing usage to ensure that resources align with actual needs. A Telecom Expense Management (TEM) approach is a true ally for asset managers. TEM solutions enable in-depth analysis and cost optimization by aligning expenses with requirements: analyzing consumption, selecting the most suitable operator plans, and more. Complementing TEM software solutions, outsourcing (managed services) offers companies proactive and daily optimization of their telecom costs, handled by experts.
Centralizing management needs
To ensure seamless operations, a mobile inventory depends on various providers, such as operators, integrators, and distributors. Daily management can quickly become complex and time-consuming. To maximize operational efficiency, businesses need robust tools that centralize all requests and information. IT asset management, inventory, catalog, and ordering solutions ensure consistent application of mobile equipment policies across different roles and employee profiles.
Securing mobile usage
Smartphones, often functioning as portable computers, are increasingly used to exchange critical and sensitive data in various forms. Just as securing desktop computers is fundamental, securing mobile devices is imperative. Industrializing security management across the entire deployed mobile inventory is no longer optional. The goal is to ensure that security governance can be deployed and continuously updated from a single point.
Addressing sustainability (CSR) issues
The hardware components of IT equipment used by professionals are now recognized as a significant source of pollution. Organizations, increasingly aware of corporate social responsibility (CSR) issues, must incorporate recycling and second-life practices into their mobile inventory strategies. This approach not only has a positive environmental impact but also opens up new revenue streams by reselling unused devices to specialized refurbishment players. Allowing unused mobile devices to gather dust or discarding them is not a sustainable practice.
Conclusion
These four factors highlight the importance of professionalizing mobile asset management to enhance efficiency, performance, and cost optimization while adopting a responsible approach to CSR. Organizations stand to gain significant benefits by making informed choices and leveraging the advantages of effective mobile asset management.