What is an MCM client? Can you rely on it to keep your data secure while sharing and managing it? Know the answers in this post.
Forget about visiting the office every day and limiting your work to the time you spend there. You have to do more. With increasing marketing, collaborating, and working demands, you cannot just rely on work-from-home as an excuse to be exempt from your duties.
You can now work from home or remotely. But how can you access and use the data everywhere that could only be accessed through office devices?
Or if you look at the issue from an employer’s viewpoint, how can you allow the worker to access relevant data without compromising on the security of this information?
An MCM client is the solution you are looking for. But what is an MCM client? How does it work? Can you rely on it to present data to the right person without causing a security breach?
These are some questions that need answers before you could decide on the usefulness of the protocol for your business.
Let’s learn the answers.
What Is MCM?
The acronym, MCM, represents the phrase mobile content management. We can see from its name that the protocol helps individuals and businesses in managing their content and information from any destination using a device and an MCM client.
Being a category of a content management system (CMS), this platform does all the things that are unique with a CMS and adds valued layers of security on top of these things.
Essentially, it helps people with storing, managing, viewing, delivering, and authorizing data. It presents this data across different devices including mobile phones, computers, and tablets. You may also use it to manage selected data offline.
What Is MCM Client?
You can access the MCM solution using the MCM client you have installed on your phone or device. This client is an app that you mostly install on your Android phones to use to access, manage, and share data.
This protocol protects your data against malicious software. Plus, it encrypts the data you access or share making it impenetrable from third parties. It’s a complete solution allowing you to view different file formats without having to install relevant apps for each of these formats.
This effectiveness across different file formats not only helps you free up lots of space on your device but also increases your efficiency.
Benefits
Security and efficiency are the two major benefits you get from this solution. The app and the whole platform use different features that ensure optimization of both of these essential results from them.
Traditional data management was different. Most of the work was stored at the server within the business premises. Then, business increased their geographical needs and had to rely on email and cloud-based storage and sharing.
Practices changed when humans have to find a solution to manage virtual teams. The need for continuous communication and data sharing took over the efficiency.
MCM is the solution that ensures, your business doesn’t have to wait because the file has to go through different steps of encryption and decryption to ensure security.
Here is the rundown of all the features that support the efficiency of the workers while maintaining and improving the security they can exercise.
Authentication And Authorization
You want to share data with only that employee or team who is in charge of handling it. If the data is confidential, it becomes even more crucial for you to secure it against unauthorized access.
Every MCM solution allows you to designate the people who would access the data. For every file and document, you can indicate the recipient.
Using the information from the devices as well as their login credentials, the client will authenticate the person trying to access the file before authorizing the access.
If you are worried about advanced malicious attempts on your data, you can use multifactor authentication to contain the security threat.
That’s not all! The authentication and authorization feature don’t only determine who will receive and read the data. Instead, you can also allow selected people to edit the files. You can select the devices they can use to edit it and the file format the end product should take.
This feature allows the two parties to increase data sharing and work speed multiple folds. It doesn’t only make the work easier to handle – the data can be manipulated at any device – but also prompt and timely.
Thoughtful Delivery
Now you are confident about the confidentiality of your data, you can think about the features that boost your workers’ performance. The first concern is whether these pieces of information are delivered in the right format or not.
There are various factors that determine if the information is delivered using efficient channels. First, the information should be delivered to the right device.
An efficient MCM allows you to share information via all types of devices. You can select – or predefine – the recipient devices for every executive who will receive your file.
Also, most MCM solutions allow you to select one from many templates that respond well to different web browsers. In short, the recipient gets a document that is easy to read saving time on their end without adding much effort to your plate.
Data Access and Storage
These solutions cover different file formats. So, you can stop worrying about the file the sender has sent if you are opening the document through your MCM client.
Whether the text arrives in MS Word, PDF, Excel, or HTML; you are covered. The same holds true for image files. Use the document viewer and save the hassle of downloading different document readers for the files shared with you.
If you decide to save the files, you can do so while tagging them for easy retrieval. Data segregation can be done both at the sender’s and recipient’s end.
The best part of these solutions is the ease of handling and storage that comes with them. Easy segregation of data is the least this platform does for you.
On top of that, you get the benefit of easy storage of the data. If a remote server is not your way of securing data for future use, you can download them into your device or to an external storage disk like a USB disk.
Do so without worrying about lost or corrupted data. MCM security feature ensures that your downloads maintain quality.
Do Your Business Need It?
An MCM solution is great to enhance workers efficiency when they are working remotely without lapsing security.
But these solutions can get costly and require proper training of the staff for effective integration. So, you would want to opt only after considering its benefits against the involved costs.
Here are all the considerations you would want while making the decision.
Your Organization Culture
MCM solutions are great for those teams that work remotely. If your team clocks in around 50% of its time from home, you should consider taking up this solution.
Nature of Work
Not every remote or virtual team is qualified to take up MCM as its primary data-sharing platform. The nature of work also determines the need.
Those teams whose efficiency doesn’t heavily or considerably depend on information flow can work without such platforms.
Analyze your workflow. Analyze the nature of communication between the team as well as the frequency in a given day. Examine how things will improve if you switch to real-time communication.
Security
Is security a big issue for the data your team shares frequently? Do you keep considering new solutions to boost security?
MCM will help you if you are transitioning out of the in-office workforce into remote or hybrid teams and are concerned about potential security issues that may be caused because of the bring-your-own-device culture.
Which MCM Solution Should You Choose
We have studied the use and benefits of an MCM platform. You now know whether you need it for your company or not and you are ready to buy it.
But there are tens of these solutions available in the market. Which one of these solutions will cater to your needs the most?
Here are a few features that you should consider while picking one out of all the offers you have for MCM solutions.
Up Time
You mean business. And it means delays in communication and data sharing cannot be tolerated. Moreover, the data that is already shared with your workers should remain available to them anywhere and anytime.
In other words, downtime of these solutions is not expected. While a small percentage of downtime is always expected from all of these content management solutions, you would want to minimize it as much as possible. Take time to compare the uptime promised by them before deciding.
Device Responsiveness
Your workforce is becoming diverse so are their devices. When you are selecting a solution, you want to ensure that it can adapt well for any and every device.
Consider its effectiveness for tablets, laptops, and desktops. Don’t forget to include operating systems and browsers in your research while selecting the solution.
READ MORE: What is content://com.android.browser.home/
Security
This is the foremost concern for most businesses. You have to ensure that the data you keep at the manager isn’t accessible by a third party.
If you are also using the solution to store your client’s data, the need for security only increases. Check out the security terms and conditions of the solution to understand if it’s meeting the mandatory data privacy requirements. Also, you would want to see if these terms align with your promises or not.
Balance of Efficiency and Security
The client should be easy to use and understand. It should be easy for the workers to authorize some co-workers to access the documents while preventing others from accessing them.
Also, the client should allow the option for allowing editing access in addition to viewing.
Also, you would want to check for the feature of time-limited access to detect malicious access to the system after office hours.
Take Away
Before you jump on gathering your team to start using an MCM solution, understand what an MCM client is.
This understanding will help you think of the ways this solution will bring ease to your work routine. Also, you will be able to distinguish between the right and not-so-right MCM solutions for your business.
Once you have defined your priorities, you can use them to compare different solutions available in the market.
Bookmark this post to use it to take reference when you are comparing different options.