4 Benefits of Cell Phone Monitoring Software for Your Business

The benefits of monitoring an employee’s digital activities while they’re working on their computers are obvious. Workforce digital activity monitoring helps promote productivity and protect sensitive data from being leaked outside your organisation. 

But what about cell phone monitoring software? Can installing monitoring software on your employees’ company-issued smartphones really benefit your business? Absolutely. Take a look at four important benefits of cell phone monitoring software for your business.

1. Prevention of Loss of Devices and InformationMake sure that your company’s digital assets accessed by employee cell phones stays where it belongs – within your organisation.

Company-issued cell phones aren’t cheap, and you probably want to avoid replacing them unless it’s absolutely necessary. Yet it’s very easy to misplace a cell phone. A phone can easily be left on a table at a restaurant, on a bus, or in the back of a cab in a busy moment. Worse, it’s easy for a skilled pickpocket to grab an iPhone or Android device from a coat pocket or bag when someone is distracted. 

And it’s not just the cost of replacing the device that you have to worry about. A mobile device that’s being used for work purposes could potentially have large amounts of valuable information on it. From client contact information to proprietary documents, much of the same valuable information that would be on an employee’s desktop computer can also be found in an employee’s cell phone. 

This means that a lost or stolen cell phone not only results in replacement costs for your company, it also puts potentially valuable business information or data at risk. 

Cell phone monitoring software that includes GPS tracking can help by making it easier to locate a lost or stolen cell phone. When you have the ability to track the device’s location as soon as it’s reported missing, you greatly increase the chances that you’ll be able to find the device quickly. It may mean that you can locate it before something bad happens to it or before any information on it can be used for malicious purposes. 

2. Ability to Keep Track of Your Employees’ Locations

Cell phone monitoring software can also allow you to track the location of the employee to whom the cell phone is assigned. If the employee is traveling on your company’s budget or working remotely (but on the company’s time clock), then it is your business to know that the employee is where they say they are. 

In certain situations, the ability to track an employee’s whereabouts can also be a safety issue. Employees in certain lines of work may sometimes be required to enter hazardous or dangerous work sites. And any employee could be in danger of becoming separated or stranded during an accident or natural disaster. Your cell phone monitoring software could help locate an employee in danger.

Your best practice is to use good judgment and discretion when it comes to tracking employee location via cell phone GPS . It’s typically not necessary to track employee’s cell phones or monitor their locations during off-hours. But you should have the ability to check-in and make certain that employees who are on the clock are where they’re supposed to be. And the ability to quickly locate employees in an emergency situation can be an added bonus. 

3. Improvement of Data Security

Data security is just as important on a cell phone as on any other device. 

If your employees are using their cell phones for work projects, then you need to be sure that they have strong data security practices in place, just as you would on a desktop computer in the office. Data stored or accessed on an employee cell phone is vulnerable to phishing attacks, malware and viruses, and other espionage tactics the same way that data on a computer is. Cell phone monitoring software offers protection from these threats.

By using employee phone monitoring software, you can ensure not only that the information on an employee cell phone is protected, but also that your employees are using best practices with regard to company data. You can be more confident that they aren’t downloading insecure apps to the phone or failing to follow security protocols that are designed to keep data safe. 

If your monitoring software alerts you to potential risky activities carried out by employees on their cell phone devices, you’ll be able to take immediate steps to shore up security. This will also give you an opening to speak with your employees and help them improve their understanding of security protocols.

4. Prevention of Insider Threats

Most employees are loyal and try to do right by the company they work for. It’s often true that data breaches are the result of carelessness or honest mistakes rather than malicious activity. But some of the biggest and most damaging data breaches don’t come from outside hackers – they come from inside of the company, from employees. And sometimes security incidents originate from employees who are purposely trying to cause damage. 

Often, these threats come from employees who have some reason to have a grudge. Perhaps they have recently been passed over for a promotion or their contracts haven’t been renewed, for example. Employees who are vulnerable for some reason – those with serious financial problems or who have issues that might make them targets for blackmail – can also pose insider threats. 

It’s important for companies and business owners to be aware of the potential for damage by malicious insiders. Monitoring your employee cell phone activities can help prevent and neutralize this type of threat the same way that it can do so on company computers. 

Employee cell phone monitoring software can alert you to unusual activity, like when an employee tries to access a file that they shouldn’t have access to or logs into a work network at an unusual time (like late at night or on the weekend). Being alerted to this kind of activity in real-time can allow you to take steps to protect your company’s data before an employee with malicious intent can succeed in damaging your business. 

Cell phone security is an essential component of your business’s data security plan.