While decision makers remain under pressure to get a grip on BYOD and facilitate the benefits of mobility and applications whilst safeguarding the security of the business, they can now breathe a sigh of relief thanks to available solutions designed to entrench effective Mobile Device Management in 2014.

Service providers who are on top of their game suggest that it is important to have the necessary products and relevant knowledge on board in order to support the market adoption of these solutions.

The general consensus is that service providers are differentiated in this competitive market by the level to which they are able to equip themselves to service the space, and how quickly they are able to do so.

Bennie Strydom, Chief Sales Officer at Integr8, says BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) has revolutionised MDM and has forced vendors to seriously review their strategies in order to add flexibility in securing, deploying and supporting business applications – while simultaneously providing the freedom for the user to enjoy personal apps.

The managed ICT services company has tailored its MDM strategy to meet the needs of a constantly evolving marketplace. The company offers a comprehensive solution to manage mobile devices, apps, and data. Users have single-click access to all of their mobile, SaaS and Windows apps from a unified corporate app store, includingseamlessly integrated email, browser, data sharing and support apps.

The intention is to support IT and help this important business silo to meet their compliance and control needs while ensuring the best user experience.

Leadership at Integr8 believe that when speaking of solutions to drive MDM, it is important to bear in mind that technology should help to secure, monitor, manage and support mobile devices.

“Integr8 offers a comprehensive solution to manage mobile devices, apps, and data. Users have single-click access to all of their mobile, SaaS and Windows apps from a unified corporate app store, including seamlessly-integrated email, browser, data sharing and support apps. Through this approach to Mobile Device Management, IT can meet their compliance and control needs while users get the freedom to experience work and life, their way,” Strydom explains.

Jacques Watermeyer, CTO at Integr8, believes businesses must have an MDM strategy in place to assist IT to gain control over mobile devices with full configuration, security, provisioning and support capabilities.

Today companies have access to comprehensive infrastructure, virtualised, cloud management platforms that empower users to manage applications and services across multiple platforms and across public, hosted and private cloud infrastructures.

“Essentially businesses now are in a far better position to add rules and boundaries to devices while these are at the office and can access the corporate network, but also provide flexibility to users,” Watermeyer continues.

Both Strydom and Watermeyer refer to statistics which emphasise the need for businesses to have a concrete MDM strategy in place.

The statistics, sourced and distributed by recognised global research houses, paint a very interesting picture of the influence mobility has in commerce. Research has been sourced from the likes of Gartner, Checkpoint, Ovum, IBM, Entersays, Vertic, Motorola & Harris Poll and Magic Software.

Amongst the most significant of these are that 78% of companies say there are more thantwice as much personal devices connecting to corporate networks now than what was the case two years ago, more than 10 billion personal mobile devices expected to be in use by 2020, 80% of BYOD activity is going unmanaged and 1.2 billion smartphones and tablets are predicted to be sold in 2013.

Watermeyer expands on Integr8’s value proposition adding that its MDM strategy provides a unified management toolset for applications and service. “MDM offers 360-degree application monitoring and deep application insight combined with a service-centric approach to ensure customers applications run smoothly and securely,” he says.