Hybrid work has employees working at home, on the go, or in the office; it’s the future of small businesses. However, this work-from-anywhere approach can make it challenging to keep your employees’ devices up to date, secure, and running smoothly. With your teams working from different locations, how can you stay on top of it all?
Desktop management gives you the power to keep employees connected, productive, and secure, no matter where they’re working. Here are a few things to consider as you explore desktop management.
How Does Desktop Management Work?
Keeping up with all the upgrades, security patches, and other technology-related tasks is a big job. And your small business is already busy, so you need technology to make things easier, not harder.
Desktop management helps keep all your small business devices working smoothly—whether those devices are at the office or on the go. With the right tools, you can help employees be more productive, collaborate easier, and safeguard against security threats. Here are a few tools to consider.
Mobile Device Management (MDM)
With more employees spread out across various locations, you need an efficient way to manage devices. Mobile device management (MDM) helps secure and control the devices hooked into your network. MDM also gives you an efficient way to handle maintenance and device upkeep so that your desktops, laptops, and other devices continue to work smoothly and securely.
Application Management
Your employees work hard, and when technology doesn’t work like it should, frustration grows. Consider a desktop management strategy that includes technologies that make collaborating at the office and on the go easier by more efficiently supporting the applications your workers use every day.
Identity and Access Management
One way that cybercriminals sneak into systems is through stolen user credentials. Identity and access management gives your workers only the access they need, putting less data at risk. Additionally, you can lock up systems tighter with protections like multi-factor authentication (MFA).
MFA requires users to provide up to three factors to authenticate their identity. For example, an employee might provide a username and password (something they know), a code sent to a cell phone (something they have), and a physical factor, like a fingerprint (something they are). MFA trips up even the most talented criminals because it’s very difficult to provide all three factors.
Remote Desktop Management
With so many employees working remotely, you need to handle the technology maintenance regardless of physical location. Remote desktop management works by connecting the “host” computer to your employee devices so that you can complete updates, run patches, and help with other support needs remotely. And since most of this happens subtly in the background, employees can continue working seamlessly without unexpected disruptions.
The Benefits of Desktop Management
Remote work brought new challenges to your doorstep, including security threats designed to take advantage of employees working on the go. Stronger desktop management helps you stay ahead of evolving security threats. For example, remote capabilities keep your devices up to date, closing down vulnerabilities that criminals most like to target.
Desktop management also helps your workers be more productive. With so much on their plates, employees need technology that supports them rather than slowing them down. Desktop management keeps devices running seamlessly so that workers don’t have unexpected slowdowns. The technology also helps support collaboration, keeping everyone connected and workflows running efficiently.
Intel and Desktop Management
Giving employees the option to work remotely has quickly become a sign of forward-thinking businesses. But creating that flexibility requires technology that supports the new way employees work. The right tools help achieve that flexibility and provide stronger security.
The best security starts at the hardware level. The Intel vPro® platform gives you innovative, hardware-based security that helps protect against leading security threats.
No IT support? Look into Intel vPro® Essentials, which was created with small businesses in mind to help guard against threats and help keep your business safer. Intel vPro Essentials delivers out-of-the-box hardware-based security and includes Intel® Hardware Shield, which helps protect against attacks below the operating system. And it’s designed for the productivity and collaboration required by remote workers.