What we learned from the first implementation of EMM for Wearables

In a report by Robert Half Technology, 81 percent of CIOs surveyed expect wearable devices, like smartwatches, to become common tools in the workplace.

It is not a matter of if wearables will break into the enterprise space but when. Several industries are already implementing wearable technology to enhance their productivity, strengthen their security, and empower their employees. Although there is a clear future for this technology, it is often associated with multiple risks and issues, including the fact that implementing a solution can be time consuming, costly, and prone to security risks.

Although these risks may have been relevant in the past, today there is a solution that can aid the implementation and management of these devices to ensure the benefits clearly outweigh the risks. With a simple solution specific to wearable devices IT admins can trust these devices with an easy-to-use management tool that allows them to focus their resources elsewhere, saving time and money.

In addition to retained resources, wearable devices can quicken response times to incidents by supporting “mobile employees” where employees are able to use both hands to complete their jobs while also receiving push notifications on jobs details, future tasks, breaks and more. There is also a security benefit, acting as a beacon of communication for two-way calling during emergencies and enabling GPS to find the correct location needed for a prompt response.

Recently, we have implemented our Enterprise Mobility Management solution for wearables (WEMM), a first for wearable technology, where we have learned several valuable lessons from being the first WEMM provider for Gear devices:

Lesson 1: Applications Applications Applications
Additional applications are need for two important reasons 1) to enable wearable secure settings and 2) to support emergency dialers. The enablement of wearable secure settings is important because it allows IT to automate the installation of the EMM client, simplifying the user experience with kiosk mode, and enabling HID Bluetooth scanner connections.

Through this stage of the implementation, we learned the key policies are critical to enterprise security as well as the simplification and convenience for the end user.

Lesson 2: Staging and Kitting
Staging and kitting is the set-up process for the watches, and we optimized this process for faster deployment model. This part of the process is top of mind for many IT professionals with 45 percent of IT professionals surveyed in an Ipswitch study saying that the additional work to support and manage wearables was their chief concern.

Even with the initial version of our EMM, there were some manual processes we had to go through that was time consuming. As we worked through optimizing the solution, we were able to create additional applications that allowed us to reduce the original implementation time by more than half.

In conclusion, through this improved implementation process SDSA was able to provide a better experience through a quicker process while the customer was able to save resources and provide better experiences to their visitors.

To learn more about WEMM and other solutions head to https://www.samsungsds.com or email us directly at bd.sdsa@samsung.com today.