Managing company-owned devices can be challenging, especially for growing businesses. Without a structured system in place, onboarding new employees, deploying essential apps, and ensuring security compliance can become overwhelming, inefficient and messy.
This is where Apple Business Manager (ABM) and Mobile Device Management (MDM) come into play. These two systems work together to provide seamless, secure, and scalable device management—ensuring your business remains productive while keeping IT headaches to a minimum.
At Inception Support, we are a managed service provider and specialise in helping businesses take full advantage of ABM and MDM to streamline setup, enhance security, and improve IT efficiency. But what exactly do these systems do, and why do you need them? Let’s break it down.
What is ABM?
Apple Business Manager (ABM) is a free service from Apple, designed for businesses to enable them to centrally manage their Apple devices. ABM lays the foundations for device management and works alongside a Mobile Device Management (MDM) solution to give organisations complete control, enhancing their security and efficiency.
The benefits of enrolling company-owned devices into ABM are:
- Quickly Set Up New Devices: as an authorised reseller, Inception Support can purchase your Apple devices for you and enrol them into ABM at the point of purchase meaning that when your device arrives, it’s already setup and ready to go within minutes of being out of the box.
- App & Licence Management: through ABM, we can purchase and assign apps and licences without the need for an Apple ID and remotely install these onto your devices so every user has what they need, when they need it.
- Improved Security & Control: enrolling your devices into ABM also means that they become registered to your business. Employees will not be able to sign in with personal accounts and take over the device so you can be sure that all company devices remain secure and compliant.
So, now you have your foundations laid, how does MDM come into it?
What is MDM?
MDM is Mobile Device Management. Inception Support uses Addigy as our preferred solution, which provides the following functions and benefits:
- Proactive Monitoring & Maintenance: our MDM software constantly monitors your business’ devices checking things like, device health, performance and security threats allowing us to fix potential issues before they become critical. A proactive approach means that you will encounter less downtime and ultimately spend less money on IT support.
- Inventory Tracking: you can also easily keep track of the devices that your business owns, who is assigned to each device, and easily enrol new devices into your policy as your business grows. Inception Support can also keep an eye on the devices you own and advise when you need to start thinking about upgrading your hardware so that you can plan ahead effectively.
- Security: through the MDM, we can enforce security measures such as password policies, VPN, plus our Addigy offering includes Malwarebytes antivirus as standard. This means that all devices will be operating under the same security policy and no device is left to be vulnerable to threats. We can also remotely lock and wipe devices should they get lost or stolen, protecting your business data.
- Automated Software Updates: you can be sure that everyone in your organisation is running the latest OS and software versions as we can push these out remotely.
MDM provides full visibility and control over your devices, ensuring security, and providing long-term cost savings.
Why do you need both?
ABM and MDM work together to provide an effective device management solution for businesses.
| Feature | Apple Business Manager (ABM) | Mobile Device Management (MDM) |
| Registers devices to your business | ✅ Yes | ❌ No |
| Automates device setup | ✅ Yes | ❌ No |
| Manages device security & policies | ❌ No | ✅ Yes |
| Monitors device health & performance | ❌ No | ✅ Yes |
| Pushes software & security updates | ❌ No | ✅ Yes |
| Allows remote troubleshooting & support | ❌ No | ✅ Yes |
Ultimately, ABM registers and assigns your devices to your business whilst MDM manages, secures and controls them. Together, both systems offer a seamless, secure and scalable device management solution so that you can look after your hardware assets.
If you are interested in device management and would like to discuss further how Inception Support can help you with this, please call us on 0203 876 1103 or visit our contact page.
This article was written by a human.
