What Is Microsoft Intune? What Does It Do?

In today’s quickly evolving work landscapes, businesses need more flexibility. With remote work continuously on the rise since 2020, it is clear that remote and hybrid work options continue to offer many benefits to both employer and employee. According to statistics, 82% of organizations offer BYOD programs, 68% experience a “jump in productivity” after implementing BYOD, and organizations using BYOD smartphones are saving as much as $341 per employee.

When organizations offer remote and hybrid work opportunities, it can yield better efficiency, productivity, higher morale and cost-efficiency. All in all, for many organizations, it’s a win-win approach for both employer and employee. The financial and other tangible advantages are clear, but what’s more challenging is how to safely allow employees to work in a remote capacity.

Microsoft Intune is a cloud-based endpoint management solution organizations can leverage to help manage user access to their internal resources while simplifying app and device management. In this article, we’ll take a look at exactly what Microsoft Intune is, its core functionalities, its benefits and how businesses like yours can leverage it to improve both security and efficiency.

What is Microsoft Intune?

Historically, businesses only had to worry about on-premises device management, but in today’s contemporary workspaces, they need to consider increased use of cloud-based solutions and remote work scenarios.

Microsoft Intune heightens endpoint protection while bringing your organization’s management tools together in one location. Your business can implement stronger security policies without disrupting its ability to provide employees with flexible work structures.

What does Microsoft Intune do?

Microsoft Intune is a cloud-based service for mobile device and endpoint management, enabling organizations to secure and control their corporate devices, apps and data, regardless of what devices employees are using or where they are working from.

Once your organization implements and integrates Microsoft Intune, you can streamline all mobile devices and apps, maintain each one’s compliance and increase employee productivity, all while enhancing security and most likely reducing costs. In essence, Microsoft Intune as a solution can be a win-win opportunity.

What is Microsoft Intune used for?

Your organization can utilize Microsoft Intune to ensure your users (employees) comply with your company’s established security protocols, practices and requirements.

• Manages employee access to company resources from one centralized platform
• Simplifies app and device management across multiple devices (e.g., mobile, laptops, desktops) and virtual endpoints and operating systems (e.g., Windows, Linux, Android, iOS, etc.)
• Helps support current device management strategies
• Easily integrates with Microsoft 365 services, along with Microsoft Entra ID, Windows Autopilot and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
• Streamlines workflow and productivity while increasing security and data protection

Using Intune’s portal, your IT administrators have the ability to monitor and manage user devices, configure settings and set security and use policies.

Business Problems Microsoft Intune Can Help Solve

It’s consistently clear all businesses need to find workable solutions so they can increase productivity and security. Microsoft Intune is designed to do just that. For example, Intune can help your company resolve the following common issues organizations like yours routinely face.

• Provide your employees with the ability to securely access on-premises email and databases from remote locations
• Assist your IT administrators in issuing corporate-owned cell phones to your employees
• Empower your employees to use their own devices when necessary (especially useful if you want to leverage BYOD or your employees do not want to carry around two phones)
• Limit employee access to internal data to approved devices
• Proactively defend against security breaches or data loss due to utilization of external devices or access from remote locations
• Address compliance issues associated with remote access or non-corporate devices
• Reduce your budgetary costs associated with device management and IT support
• Empower your IT staff to remotely wipe if devices are lost or stolen
• Allow for the containerization of business and personal data on every device (e.g. for BYOD employees, their personal apps are left alone while your business apps are managed and monitored, ensuring employees’ privacy while your company gets the security it needs
• IT administrators can create whitelists and blacklists for applications to encourage productivity while bettering your organization’s security posture
• Manage data sharing of apps so information going to third parties or other applications is limited where preferred

When it comes down to it, integrating Microsoft Intune can go a long way toward reducing your business’s IT budget and staff resources because it comes with a heavy amount of automation.

With a centralized device management system, your IT team will have more time to focus on other important tasks. Furthermore, your employees can better concentrate on being more productive because they will have all the tools they need at their fingertips without having to find workarounds or overcome other hurdles when working offsite.

Core Features of Microsoft Intune

Microsoft Intune offers organizations many core features to help facilitate productivity and security. In this section, we’ll take a look at four of its primary features.

Device Management

One of the most important core features is that Intune enables an organization’s ability to manage and configure company-owned and BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) endpoints. Intune makes the process simple.

• Enrolls both company-owned and personal devices into Intune’s management process
• Allows administrators to manage device settings and set company security policies (regardless of the OS being used or a worker’s location)
• Provides administrators the ability to promote compliance with industry and regulatory requirements and standards

Intune’s Mobile Device Management (MDM) is a key feature of device management. Employees nowadays are increasingly relying on their phones and tablets to perform business functions and MDM allows administrators more control and reduces the complexities associated with ensuring proper security protocols to ensure corporate-owned resources and data are adequately protected.

App Management

Intune enables administrators to deploy, update and control access to business apps through its Mobile Application Management (MAM) feature, regardless of the device being used for work purposes.

• Publish apps to user devices
• Manage application licenses and distribution
• Manage apps from the Microsoft Store, Apple App Store or other locations
• Push necessary updates to apps
• Remove unnecessary or obsolete apps

Businesses can rest assured no rogue applications will affect company resources or compromise data because they can maintain control through Intune.

Security & Compliance

Your business’s IT administrators can perform their duties without the fear of BYOD devices or remote network connections compromising your organization’s security policies. Since Intune has the ability to enforce encryption, security policies and access controls, this is easily manageable.

Additionally, by leveraging Intune’s security and compliance capabilities, your administrators can effectively enforce security policies, monitor compliance, reduce external vulnerabilities and protect data against threats in real-time.

Zero Trust Integration

In today’s increasingly complex threat landscape, more and more businesses are utilizing Zero Trust principles to better protect their digital assets. By following Zero Trust’s principles, businesses can allow their employees to utilize any operating system from any location.

Microsoft’s Intune fully supports Zero Trust’s philosophy of preventive and proactive identity and device verification.  If you decide to integrate Intune, you can rest assured it’ll provide your company with the stronger control measures it needs.

All users, devices and apps are considered untrustworthy until they are vetted and properly authenticated before they are able to access company-owned assets and resources. Microsoft Intune implements zero-trust security measures to allow organizations to comply with industry and legislative compliance mandates. It also integrates well with Conditional Access, Microsoft Defender and third-party security.

How Intune Benefits Organizations

Integrating Microsoft Intune across the board in an organization can prove to be highly beneficial to many of those who opt to use it. Intune offers the following abilities.

• Utilizes a web-based administrative center with an emphasis on endpoint management
• Gives IT administrators the ability to manage, troubleshoot and resolve issues remotely
• Offers data-driven reporting on activities
• Enhances security while enabling productivity through remote work
• Offers flexibility and control for securing data across all types of devices
• Reduces IT overhead with automated management
• Supports cross-platform management (Windows, macOS, iOS, Android) with a unified solution
• Provides organizations the ability to set policies to control access to corporate data via Office 365 mobile app management
• Gives seamless integration for deploying apps to various devices in a secure fashion
• Enforces established security protocols and policies
• Assists in detecting and preventing cybersecurity threats
• Helps organizations meet compliance requirements by enforcing security and industry standards
• Empowers IT administrators to perform conditional access based on employee identity and device compliance
• Offers automated device enrollment to rapidly get employees the access they need
• Gives organizations protection from lost or stolen devices, including encryption and access restrictions

Businesses nowadays need to emphasize productivity, efficiency and security. Microsoft’s Intune is designed to help them meet these objectives. Another substantial benefit is it also helps organizations reduce costs since it empowers them to allow BYOD devices and eliminates the need to purchase and maintain costly hardware.

Summary

Organizations consistently face issues due to the increased presence of decentralized workplaces and BYODs. However, making adjustments to accommodate hybrid and remote work structures brings challenges since this increases security risks.

Organizations must identify ways to maintain their security posture and streamline processes while simultaneously empowering workers to be able to have access to internal systems, along with an ability to work and collaborate.

Microsoft, through its cloud-based Endpoint Manager suite, offers a solution in its Intune product. This component of its suite provides businesses with a seamless way to enjoy unified device and application management in one place.

IT administrative staff can easily monitor apps, approve devices, ensure security protocols, maintain compliance and deploy applications when needed – all in the convenience of a comprehensive, centralized space.

Ready to Enjoy the Benefits of Microsoft Intune? Red River Can Help!

Your IT staff has plenty to handle without having to constantly monitor devices, worry about the security of remote devices or connections, or wonder what malicious apps may be downloaded on devices used for organizational purposes. Having a robust set of tools to help facilitate productivity and cybersecurity is a must these days.

Microsoft Intune helps reduce the often substantial amount of time spent manually handling these tasks and resolving problems. Remote work and BYOD strategies are likely here to stay. Over the course of time, having a centralized digital space for employers to leverage can significantly improve efficiency, productivity and security.

Red River is committed to providing businesses with solutions to help them meet their goals. Our specialized team of IT professionals is equipped to help your organization explore the right tools it needs. If Microsoft Intune is identified as the right solution for you, we can help streamline the setup process. Our team can integrate and deploy Intune, configure your preferred settings and help you customize it to meet your security and compliance needs.

To learn more about how Red River’s team of experts can help your organization experience the powerful capabilities of Intune, contact us today to get the conversation started. We’re happy to answer any questions and share more information.