When I perform mobility optimization assessments for clients or have discussions with them about their overall mobile device strategy, the discussion quickly focuses on how to ensure that their devices are available and ready when needed. Security inevitably comes up because of its importance in ensuring appropriate access to devices and business data as well as planning on how to deal with lost or stolen devices.

Inadequate security and poor device availability are major contributors to high Total Cost of Ownership and missed Return on Investment targets for many company’s mobile device fleets. One of the major goals of Mobile Device Management (MDM) is to increase device availability and required security. Managed Service solutions use MDM platforms and custom apps to create and enforce security policies. Motorola Solutions’ service desk uses these as tools to perform remote software updates and to troubleshoot problems remotely with the goal of reducing the number of devices sent into repair unnecessarily – all of which help improve device availability. Additionally, key device data such as battery statistics, scanner statistics, location statistics, etc. can be captured as an enabler for looking for trends to identify potential devices issues proactively such as application memory leaks or batteries that are going bad – again with the goal of improving mobile device availability.

But, there is only so much your managed service provider can do to improve device availability. Your organization also has a key role to play. By making use of information on how your devices are being used – with data collection and analysis enabled by your service provider – communication in the form of reports, email alerts or even on-device alerts can be used to facilitate and enforce changes in behavior that positively impact device availability and support key business goals and drivers.

For example, a service provider cannot force employees to regularly charge device batteries, a policy that helps ensure mobile devices are available and delivering maximum performance throughout a shift. However, with a service like Motorola Solutions’ Mobility Lifecycle Management (MLM) solution, analysis and reporting can be used to allow managers to pinpoint such issues and allow them to work with employees to modify behavior so that it aligns with policy. Similarly, if a site uses mobile devices that are checked out during the day and according to policy should be returned to the site at the end of each shift, service provider analysis and reporting can be used to alert a team to modify employee behavior as required.

In my experience, many clients concentrate on the use of MDM tools and Service Desks to address basic device management but have too little focus on capabilities that allow them to diagnose and address workforce behaviors that may be impacting device performance and availability.

This summer I worked on a project with a transportation and logistics company. A segment of this company’s workforce is not full-time, so these employees do not come to company sites very often. These part-time employees are instructed to use mobile devices and scanning capabilities so paper is not required. Two major drivers for reducing problems (in this case reducing paper, an important business metric that drives cost and customer satisfaction) are ensuring devices are fully charged each day before going out on deliveries and ensuring the part-time employees are actually using the devices correctly and performing scans. As a service provider, Motorola Solutions is working to make sure they have information on which employees are not complying with policy. This is a key first step for making the behavior changes required to ensure devices are being used as intended.

Meeting your expectations for device investment may require that you find a way to monitor compliance for device use policies and modify as required. This is especially important to ensure correct employee behavior following the rollout of new mobile devices and/or applications, addressing inherent accepted behavior that does not completely follow policy for an existing mobile device estate, and to ensure new, temporary, or contracted employees use and follow mobile device policies.

This is a key capability of Motorola Solutions’ Mobility Lifecycle Management (MLM) solution. How is your organization doing? It may be time to add behavior to device availability and security as a key factor that impacts your ability to meet your mobile device operations goals.

Chuck Roark is Director Client Principals for Motorola Solutions, Inc.