Subscription services aren’t just winning in the entertainment industry – they’re coming for your work computer and your business phone too. It’s a model called device as a service (DaaS), and its popularity is currently being fueled by the global shift to distributed and hybrid work, which has made outsourcing device management more appealing and cost-effective than ever before.
Tillmann Schwabe, General Manager, everphone US.
But what is DaaS all about? Rather than owning all their devices, companies are emerging in this new category that turns the device ownership model on its head and offers cell phones, tablets, and laptops as a subscription service. This can even extend to scanners for retail settings and other industry-specific tools.
The way DaaS works is quite simple from a client point-of-view: they subscribe to a third-party provider that manages all devices through every stage of their lifecycle – from provisioning, deployment, and maintenance through to resale.
But what makes this model so transformational for enterprises at scale? Here are the five ways DaaS delivers a wide-reaching solution that businesses need.
1. Reduce your overhead costs and free up CapEx on your balance sheet
Procuring and managing a fleet of mobile devices is expensive: the total cost includes the mobile devices, the software applications that go on them, and the IT staff required to ensure everyone in your organization has the technology they need when they need it.
To maintain your own devices year over year, you have to carry a significant amount of CapEx that you can’t use for other initiatives. The logistics of doing this management in-house is also expensive and complicated, and that requires operational support, which also requires funding. From insurance to repairs to replacements and recycling, the cost of keeping device management in-house adds up.
By delegating this work to a DaaS provider that has a staff trained to make life easy for their subscribers reduces friction for your team and frees up all the CapEx you’d otherwise be forced to carry on your balance sheet.
2. Relieve your IT staff of managing a fleet of devices
Imagine you have 25 new employees onboarding on Monday. Rather than collecting their technology needs, procuring their devices, provisioning them, and deploying each of those devices onsite or via mail, someone else handled that entirely.
Instead, you can free up hours of a full-time IT employee’s time by outsourcing these simple but time-consuming tasks to a DaaS company that specializes in making each step of that process happen with minimal friction for your team.
3. Get the most secure, up-to-date devices on the market
Whether your organization is hybrid or fully distributed today, individual devices are likely the location of your greatest security liabilities. Email compromise scams alone were the source of $1.8 billion in damage to American businesses, according to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center.
There are two levels at which devices can be secured: the level of authentication (also known as password protection) required to use the device in question and the security of individual applications on that device.
To enforce multi-factor authentication and require application updates, many companies already rely on a mobile device management (MDM) system, but staying on top of its administration can be a challenge for IT teams that have greater concerns, like the security of their products and their end user’s experience.
Fortunately, MDM is typically part of the DaaS model, which is part of what makes it so popular. With a third-party enforcing critical updates and security standards, you don’t have to worry about the latest application vulnerability in the news.
And if a company device is lost, damaged, or worse, that MDM can lock and wipe your company’s data before any further harm is done.
4. Give your employees the choice they want
One of the greatest benefits of the DaaS model to enterprises is the way they support a more seamless employee experience.
With a DaaS program, your employees can select from a list of approved devices and operating systems, which can help you accommodate the needs of the die-hard Apple and Android fans you have on staff.
DaaS also enables employees to maintain a single device for personal use and business use. With MDM in place, your DaaS can deploy a firewall to securely separate their personal and business activities on that device without giving employers access to their employees’ personal information or data on their activities.
Employees appreciate the luxury of only keeping track of one phone and that their cellphone is a device they actually want to use. With the Great Resignation, employees value when employers offer value-added perks to the staff, so companies need to provide flexibility and choice when it comes to their tech as a baseline for attracting new employees.
5. Eliminate the unknowns and hidden costs associated with BYOD
Bring your own device (BYOD) may once have seemed like a good idea, but with the increased risk of cyberattacks alongside the risks of data breach and loss, it’s become a model of the past.
If you don’t manage your team’s devices, you don’t have control over the security of them or the data stored on them. Without an MDM solution in place, you lose the ability to mitigate data loss and vulnerabilities, should a device go missing.
And without an IT support system in place, you lose hours of employee productivity every year while they attempt to troubleshoot technical issues and make updates on their own.
Delegate device management to the experts with DaaS
The full lifecycle service DaaS providers supply has grown tremendously in popularity over the past decade. A recent study from Accenture found that 65 percent of PC manufacturers offered DaaS as a product by 2019, up from zero percent in 2015. And that number has only increased since the world shifted to remote processes in March 2020.
While DaaS may be a relatively new model, its popularity has grown rapidly for a reason. Mobile device management at the enterprise level is best left to the experts, and it’s most cost-effective when delegated along with all other aspects of device procurement and maintenance. Thanks to DaaS, there’s no need to waste any more time or talent on updating the technology your teams rely on.
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