TABLE OF CONTENTS
Edited & Reviewed
According to Jamf, approximately 40% of mobile users run devices with known vulnerabilities.
This means that every unsecured remote device, whether a phone or a laptop, is a liability waiting to be exploited.
The risks are real, and so are the consequences, with data breaches costing organizations up to $5 million.
Fortunately, a strong Mobile Device Management (MDM) strategy is your first line of defense against such security risks.
Here’s how to pick a powerful MDM solution to protect your remote devices.
TL;DR:
- This article walks you through 8 steps to select and deploy the right Mobile device management solution in 2025.
- To begin, map how different teams use devices, because needs vary widely.
- Don’t overlook compatibility; many Android devices still run outdated versions that some MDMs don’t support.
- Strong security, hands-free provisioning, and real-time monitoring are non-negotiable.
- A smooth user experience and responsive support ultimately make or break your rollout.
- Whichever MDM you choose, Workwize allows you to ship devices with it pre-installed to your employees worldwide.
Step 1: Define your mobile device management needs
Before you Google “best MDM solutions”, stop. You’re laying the blueprint for how your organization will handle every phone, tablet, and possibly even the barcode scanners.
Here’s what you need to do instead:
- Understand how devices are used across teams: If your finance team needs secure mobile access for expense approvals, but your field technicians are scanning shipments in the field with rugged Androids, those are different requirements.
A one-size-fits-all MDM may not be the answer; even Redditors agree:
Via Reddit
- Decide on your device ownership model: Are people using their device (BYOD), or do you hand out company devices? Bring Your Own Device opens up a whole new chapter of legal and privacy concerns. You’ll need clear boundaries around what you control and what you don’t.
- Don’t overlook compliance and risk: If your business touches healthcare, finance, or the EU, familiarize yourself with HIPAA, PCI-DSS, and GDPR. 78% of respondents in a survey said that their organization experienced a data breach due to the mishandling of mobile devices. So yeah, it matters.
If you skip this step, any MDM tool may appear effective until you’re stuck in a half-baked rollout, wondering why it doesn’t work with half of your employee devices.
Read More: 19 MDM Benefits for Remote Teams
Step 2: Assess device and OS compatibility
The mobile device ecosystem within an enterprise is rarely homogeneous. Your employees use a variety of smartphones, tablets, and laptops running different operating systems like iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS.
You need a full device census. What’s out there? What OS versions? Which models? Are you dealing with consumer-grade devices or rugged ones made for warehouses? Some MDM platforms—Jamf, ManageEngine, InTune—handle this easily. Others don’t.
Additionally, OS version support is not guaranteed. Over half of active Android devices worldwide are running on Android versions at least four years old. If your MDM only supports Android 12 and up, you’ve got a problem.
Moreover, some vendors prioritize iOS over Android. If you're running a mixed environment, verify that the feature sets are consistent across platforms.
Read More: Workwize's Top Picks for the Best Apple MDM Solutions in 2025
Step 3: Evaluate security and compliance capabilities
Mobile devices are now full-blown endpoints, just smaller and easier to leave in a cab. That makes them prime targets. Fun fact: Just 8% of data breaches are caused by external cyber attacks. You know what causes the majority, 31%, of them? Losing your laptop or cellphone.
So your mobile device management software can’t just slap on a passcode policy and call it a day.
Here’s what to look for:
- Encryption enforcement (both at rest and in transit).
- Remote locking and data wiping; pay attention to selective wiping too.
- Geo-fencing and time-based access. You should be able to instantly locate and erase devices in the wrong place at the wrong time.
- Compliance-ready logging. You’ll want audit trails that can withstand an inspection.
- Threat detection and remediation hooks. Plus points if it integrates with your EDR or SIEM.
Gartner’s 2024 Magic Quadrant for UEM tools highlights security features as arguably the biggest differentiator between mid-tier and enterprise-grade platforms. Don’t assume they all do the same thing. They don’t.
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Whatever MDM you choose, Workwize can ship devices enrolled with it to your global workforce. Whether you choose Kandji, Jamf, or another software, Workwize, a hardware lifecycle management platform, automatically installs it in every employee devices before they reach your employees. This means your employees are ready for from day 1 of onboarding. Securely. |
Step 4: Examine application management features
Your MDM should come with strong mobile application management capabilities. Here's what to check:
- App whitelisting/blacklisting to let useful apps through and block entertainment, games, TikTok etc.
- Enterprise app store to distribute business applications or custom builds
- Containerization or work profiles for a clean divide between work and personal apps, especially on BYOD.
- Silent installs and updates. Look for zero-touch deployment features.
- App usage reporting: To find out whether people are using the apps you give them or not.
Application control isn’t just blocking harmful apps, though that’s important. It also creates a more focused, manageable work environment.
Step 5: Consider device enrollment and provisioning options
Good MDM software supports zero-touch enrollment methods, allowing you to provision devices right out of the box.
The options you get by default from hardware manufacturers include Apple Business Manager for iOS, and Android Zero-Touch, or Samsung Knox for Samsung. Third-party tools like Jamf, ManageEngine, and Kandji also do this.
Knox though, is known to cause some issues:
Via Reddit
Consider who’s handling device enrollment. If IT has to manually touch every device, it won’t scale. Look for features like delegated enrollment, QR-based setup, and automatic policy assignment based on user groups or departments. Provisioning should be hands-off and dynamic.
If provisioning isn’t solid, you’ll end up fixing basic settings every time someone gets a new device.
Step 6: Review monitoring and reporting tools
Devices can often go off-network, switch SIMs, travel across borders, and install apps you didn’t approve of. That’s why visibility can’t be delayed or shallow. You need real-time data and smart monitoring to be safe.
- Get real-time visibility across all endpoints: At a minimum, the platform should give you current device health, policy status, installed apps, security posture, and compliance status.
- Make sure reporting is audit-ready: If you're after compliance frameworks like NIST or CIS, youneed reporting that can back up your audits.
- Use smart alerts: A constant stream of low-priority notifications will get tuned out. But smart alerts, such as detecting rooted devices, unauthorized configuration changes, or jailbreaking, should surface immediately.
Extra points if the system integrates with your SIEM or ticketing tools so you’re not manually forwarding CSVs every Friday.
Without this layer, your MDM becomes a liability you can’t afford.
Read More: 10 Best Endpoint Management Software For Your Organization in 2025
Step 7: Analyze integration with existing IT infrastructure
Ideally, your MDM of choice should integrate into what you’re already running across identity, security, networking, and endpoint devices.
To ensure it does, pay attention to
- Identity and access management: Find out if it supports SSO via your IdP, or can it sync with Active Directory or Azure AD (Entra) groups.
- Dynamic group memberships: If you use this to control access elsewhere, your MDM should be able to plug right into that logic without requiring workarounds or custom scripts.
- UEM or EMM tools: MDMs don’t operate in a vacuum; they are part of a larger mobility or endpoint strategy. If you’re already managing desktops with Intune, for example, layering a separate MDM product on top will double your workload unless integration is tight.
Moreover, Integration gaps don’t always show up in demos. Ask vendors how they handle real-world use cases inside complex enterprise environments. And if you’re deep into automation or running a lot of policy-as-code, make sure the MDM exposes the right hooks.
Step 8: Compare user experience and support services
Finally, no matter how technically sound an MDM platform is, it lives or dies by how it feels to the people using it. That means both your IT team and your end users.
From the IT side, focus on interface responsiveness, policy creation workflows, and audit clarity. You want something that lets you create and apply configurations without consulting paperwork. Things like real-time previews, sandboxed policy testing, or rollback options might seem small, but are also essential.
The end-user experience matters, too. A poorly designed MDM app attracts complaints and slows adoption.
Support is the other half of the experience equation. Enterprise-grade support should mean access to qualified people who understand complex environments. Look for live chat, regional coverage, onboarding assistance, and, ideally, a vendor who speaks your stack’s language.
Mobile Devices, Managed
The cost of poor MDM shows up quietly until it doesn’t. MDM is infrastructure, really. Treat it like any other core system, or you’ll be paying for it later.
But no matter which MDM solution you pick, Workwize has your back. It ships devices with your MDM software to locations worldwide. Moreover, Workwize facilitates full lifecycle hardware management, from provisioning to disposition.
Our clients include companies such as DuckDuckGo, HighLevel, Prezi, and more.
Book a demo with us now to see how we can help.
