Dedicated Device Management: Everything You Need to Know

Every business relies on smart devices for mobility and business growth in this digital world. Excessive smart devices are increasingly becoming popular with day-to-day technological advancements. But smart devices are also becoming a reason for the downfall of many businesses. A survey has revealed that an average employee spends about 8 hours per week on unnecessary activities during office time. Moreover, we hear about several cases where businesses are highly affected due to inadequate security measures. Mobile device management solutions help businesses gain efficiency, meet compliance standards, reduce costs and control application usage on dedicated devices.

Dedicated Device Management

What are dedicated devices?

Dedicated devices are company-owned devices specifically oriented to perform single-use cases and streamline business operations. Unlike general-purpose devices, which can be used for a wide range of tasks, dedicated devices are purpose-built and dedicated to a specific application or use case. Examples of dedicated devices include point-of-sale (POS) terminals, barcode scanners, medical equipment, industrial control systems, and kiosks for your business to automate routine operations with continuous availability. Kiosk mode is set up on these devices to turn them into dedicated devices. Businesses can use kiosk mode to set single or multi-purpose dedicated devices. Dedicated devices are designed to provide reliable and efficient performance for their intended purpose, often with features and capabilities that are specific to the industry or application they serve.

In which scenarios will these dedicated devices work? 

Dedicated devices serve various industries to streamline and manage business operations. Here are some common use cases of dedicated devices in different industries: 

  • Point of Sale (POS) systems

Point of sale is an alternative to cash register. It is a dedicated device to help retailers generate bills and perform transactions. Retail shops include versatile items that take much work to manage. POS saves them from the frustrations of keeping prices in mind and finding the items when customer demands. Customers can pay their bills online and get printed receipts instantly. It enhances the user experience and the accuracy of billing with zero error.

  • Transportation and Logistics

Dedicated devices like barcode scanners, handheld terminals, and GPS trackers are widely used for inventory management, package tracking, and fleet management in logistics and transportation.

  • Education and Training

To improve the educational experience and facilitate effective training programs, interactive whiteboards, e-learning devices, and language-learning devices are very popular in the education industry.

  • Digital Signage

Businesses use digital signage in marketing their brands. Large enterprises use digital signage at various public places like roadsides, malls, and railway stations to enhance the visibility of their brands. These dedicated devices are purpose-built, and a slideshow or video is displayed continuously so every person can watch it. Digital signage is attractive and cost-effective as it includes only one one-time cost, and brands can change the display anytime.

  • Healthcare

Booking tablets, patient monitoring devices, and handheld diagnostic devices are used in healthcare settings to provide a kindly patient service, monitoring, and treatment.

  • Hospitality and Service

Dedicated devices like self-service kiosks, hotel check-in terminals, and restaurant ordering systems improve customer experience and streamline operations in the hospitality industry. It is crucial to provide them with instant services to attain customer retention. Dedicated devices are installed so visitors can get information check-in and out of the premises without human interaction. 

  • Airport Ticket Pricing Desks

At airports, dedicated devices are installed to provide ease and comfort to customers. Sometimes, the crowd is so high at airports that it is impossible to entertain each traveller quickly. So, airport management uses ticket pricing desks with dedicated devices so visitors can get all the information they want. They can check flight details and book their tickets from these dedicated devices.

Why is it Important to Have Dedicated Device Management? 

Dedicated device management is necessary to optimize dedicated devices’ costs, maintenance, security, and performance. With device management, dedicated devices can ensure continuity and maintenance. Businesses can timely update devices to have the latest security patches and ensure customers’ privacy with an efficient management system. The best way to manage dedicated devices is through MDM. Here, we will discuss an MDM perfect for Android devices.

Dedicated Device

AirDroid Business is an MDM solution for Android enterprise devices that helps businesses streamline the management of dedicated devices to ensure accuracy and continuous service. It is a highly scalable solution for different business levels to optimize device usage and remotely control devices for security and management. Let’s discuss some important features of AirDroid Business that specifically help businesses manage and secure dedicated devices:

  • Streamline device management

AirDroid Business MDM helps enterprises remotely monitor and control dedicated devices from a central location. Dedicated devices like digital signage are installed at multiple locations where the availability of a person every time is difficult to ensure. MDM helps businesses continuously monitor a large fleet of devices from a central location, including device performance. It also helps businesses to update the devices promptly and remotely lock them down when any suspicious activity is monitored.

  • Ensure endpoint security

AirDroid Businesses is widely accepted for its capability to secure the system from all endpoints. It provides strong password authentication, remote wipes, factory resets, policies, and kiosk settings to control access to enrolled devices. AirDroid Business helps the corporate sector comply with industry regulations and work smoothly. App allowlists, blacklists, web filtering and access restrictions for employees using the kiosk mode of AirDroid Business ensure strict security and controlled device processing. 

  • Simplify app management

It allows to manage enterprise apps and also the Google Play Store apps. Admins can ensure that the apps installed on the dedicated devices are bug-free and do not affect device processing using the test release feature of AirDroid Business. They can also restrict end-users from installing or deleting any app from the device and remotely installing apps on them.

  • Protect lost or stolen devices.

The real-time location tracking and geo-fencing feature of AirDroid Business MDM helps to secure and track stolen devices easily. Remote lockdown, factory reset, and remote wipes save a company’s data. It enables them to keep the company’s and customer’s information secure from unauthorized hands.

  • Remote troubleshooting of devices

AirDroid Business offers remote monitoring and control features for enrolled devices. Dedicated devices are continuously monitored from a central location, and IT teams can easily access the controls to remotely troubleshoot issues on these devices without physically checking them. It reduces the downtime of devices and also saves costs. AirDroid Business also allows admins to enable Black Screen Mode while remote troubleshooting to make the device useless for end-users.

  • Prevent end-users from misusing.

Admins can strictly control device usage for end-users and ensure they only utilize the devices for specific operations. The app allowlist feature helps to enable a few

applications to run on dedicated devices, and kiosk mode provides additional security by locking down the devices for a single application. AirDroid Business also allows admins to enable ‘black screen mode,’ making the device useless for end-users. 

Conclusion 

Mobile devices have increasingly become popular in enterprises, as they help them to communicate and share data easily. We can take several other benefits from these smart devices, making them purpose-built. Dedicated devices ease the workforce and provide efficiency in work. But the need is to take great care of device usage and working policies. Businesses need to utilize MDM solutions to optimize device usage and costs for monitoring and maintenance of these devices. Start with a 14-day free trial to learn more information about dedicated device management.

Ranbeer Maver is a Computer Science undergraduate. He's a geek who embraces any new consumer technology with inhuman enthusiasm.