An ambitious entrepreneur can start a successful business with little more than a solid idea, a strategic plan and a smartphone to stay on top of everything as they execute it. Before long, though, life within a small and medium-sized business (SMB) starts to look very different.
First, additional team members are hired, all of whom need their own smartphones to stay connected and collaborate. Then, tablets may be used to take advantage of a larger display and perform client demos.
Investing in additional mobile devices is a natural outcome of business growth — it’s a sign that an SMB is on track to deliver great employee and customer experiences based on digital-first processes. As these devices become more integral to your business, though, you need to consider how you’ll secure and manage them.
Samsung already provides built-in data protection for mobile devices with Knox security for small businesses, but it also offers everything SMBs need to keep them updated and running smoothly with tools such as Knox Manage and Knox E-FOTA.
The sooner SMBs adopt these SMB security solutions, the better they’re able to focus on business growth. Usually, the biggest question they ask is: Do we really need these tools yet?
Checklist: Signs an SMB should invest in secure mobile device management
If you’re not sure how far along you are on this journey, these are some of the most common tipping points:
Small business security threats begin to emerge
Ask yourself: How prepared would your business be to contend with any or all of the following?
- An employee gets an email from a suspicious-looking source demanding payment of an attached invoice. This could be a phishing scheme, in which opening the attachment unleashes malware that lets cybercriminals steal data or bring your network to a halt.
- A team member logs onto a public Wi-Fi hotspot while they’re on the road. Only later will it become clear that opened the door to third-party attacks on devices and corporate data.
- An employee loses their device while carrying it around all day. There’s no easy way to determine whether all its apps and content are accessible by whoever finds it.
Enforcing policies threatens to become a full-time job
Even if you develop policies to avoid or mitigate the most common cyber threats, it can become nearly impossible to ensure they are followed by everyone on your team. Without any visibility into where devices are and how they are being used, you can lose a lot of hours to manual work.
How often would you say you’re running into related issues, like these?
- When a new employee joins the team, they’re left waiting to have their mobile device fully set up because you (or someone else) need to provide them with the proper configurations and policies.
- There are opportunities to offer customers an enhanced experience by providing them with mobile devices, but you can’t risk them being used for unintended purposes or accessing sensitive business apps.
- It’s time to upgrade the entire business to the latest mobile device, but assigning profiles in bulk is out of the question.
The demand for apps (and keeping them updated) starts to get overwhelming
Employees naturally want to use whatever is out there to stay productive and efficient on the job, and most SMBs encourage them to download apps that make sense. Then, things can get complicated.
Does any of this sound familiar?
- Work stops when mobile devices have problems because employees must return to the office for help.
- When an employee’s device goes missing, there’s no way to track its location.
- Employees are running devices with different operating systems, causing compatibility issues with critical applications.
- When operating systems are updated, there can be unexpected surprises because devices cannot be tested first.
- Scheduling any kind of device update is a nightmare and is seen as a huge interruption by the team.
How Samsung Knox solutions can empower SMBs
Large enterprises may have dedicated IT departments that can handle many of these challenges, but SMBs require tools to manage and protect mobile devices with the same level of ease and agility.
Samsung Knox meets this need head-on with an approach based on hardware-backed security and simplified management that offers continuous protection.
Here are some examples of Knox SMB security solutions that allow them to grow without mobile device headaches getting in the way:
Knox Mobile Enrollment
When it’s time to set up small batches of mobile devices and get them in employee’s hands on the spot, Knox Mobile Enrollment (KME) provides the quick and easy out-of-the-box experience everyone wants. The setup is simple: KME auto populates user credentials on each device.
You can also enroll work devices with KME across any network scenario or fleet size — either using local network resources or in a hybrid cloud-and-local environment.
The most recent version of KME also makes it easy to quickly clone a standard profile into an advanced profile, and bulk profile assignments can be done without user passwords.
Knox Manage
Whether you have people working in an office, in the field, or both, everyone wants to achieve more. Knox Manage helps you and your team make the most of the mobile devices you’ve deployed, furthering greater productivity and operational efficiency at the same time.
SMBs may not have a large fleet, but even as you reach the 10-device mark, Knox Manage provides a way to harmonize all your policies across them. There might be some employees, for example, whose role requires the high bandwidth and low latency of 5G. The latest version of Knox Manage lets you selectively apply 5G network access to either their entire device or for specific work apps that you set up in an allowlist.
When employees run into difficulties with their devices in the field, Knox Manage includes a remote access tool for hands-on troubleshooting. This saves invaluable time for both admins and those out in the field. It’s a simple, intuitive user experience that lets you perform critical actions no matter where employees are.
The next time someone loses their device, Knox Manage’s Lost Mode can make the device ring for 5 minutes, at which point it will report its location. You can even lock the device and display a message on the screen when it’s lost or stolen.
SMBs tend to see employees come and go, but there could still be a lot more return on investment (ROI) to get out of their mobile devices. This is where you can use Knox Manage to instantly perform a factory reset and repurpose it for another employee.
Employees aren’t the only ones you may be providing devices for. Imagine setting up a tablet to let customers sign in when they visit or to look up inventory in a store. Knox Manage includes a Kiosk mode where devices are set to run a single app or a limited set of apps. This brings extra peace of mind from a security perspective for small businesses while making it easy to offer kiosk-style experiences to customers.
Finally, it’s important to note that Knox Manage not only works well with Samsung devices but works across other platforms as well, which means you can use it to manage iOS devices and more.
Knox E-FOTA
Traditionally, firmware updates had to be done in person. Today, SMBs can take advantage of firmware over-the-air (FOTA) solutions like Knox E-FOTA that allow updates to happen without interrupting anyone’s workflow.
Instead of asking employees to get involved with updating their devices, for instance, Knox E-FOTA not only lets you choose the OS you want but ensures it can work with all your apps and device models. You can also beta test updates on sample devices first to avoid any unwanted surprises and prevent devices from unwanted, automatic OS version upgrades.
If employees are busy meeting a critical deadline, that’s no problem — E-FOTA also lets you postpone updates and allows for flexible scheduling. You can set updates for a specific date and time or by other factors like connectivity, battery level, and charging status.
The bottom line is that you can manage OS and app updates without integration issues, compatibility problems, or — most importantly — disrupting the work you need your team to do.
Why Samsung Knox?
You may not have extensive data backups, and you can’t afford consultants to be at your beck and call. That’s why you need a partner who can not only provide the right tools but also deep expertise and an understanding of an SMB’s unique business needs.
Without that kind of partner, one serious data breach or IT glitch could lead to frustrated employees, damaged customer relationships and lost revenue.
Samsung demonstrates this kind of partnership with its approach to Knox. For example, Galaxy hardware is built secure — from the design to manufacturing to the moment SMBs put it in their employees’ hands. Samsung is also open to innovation, evolving its security for small business solutions in a spirit of openness and partnership. This starts with building upon Android’s proven multilayered security and adding best-in-class technologies to address the constantly changing threat landscape.
Cloud-based solutions like Knox Manage, KME and Knox E-FOTA extend the value of Knox security and put SMBs in control of their devices and data, allowing their teams to work securely and productively.
It’s easier than ever to get started with Knox solutions, even for SMBs without any mobile device management knowledge or expertise. Samsung’s QuickStart service for Knox Manage is a case in point — get expert assistance with everything from the setup process to configuring devices and more.
Find out how to safeguard your enterprise with an incident response plan by downloading this free white paper, and see how Samsung’s Knox Suite keeps your business secure from the second a Galaxy device powers on.
