Smarter Mobile Management: More Than Just a Better Price

Amyannetts
7 days ago
7 min read

Mobile devices—vital tools for field staff, health workers and office teams—can slip through the cracks when it comes to oversight and planning. Managing mobile devices at scale can quickly become a costly, complex distraction.

In this article, we unpack why outsourced, company-owned devices offer a far more effective approach—and why both self-managed and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) models often fall short.

Yes, we’ll cover self-managed and BYOD models too—if only so you know what you’re (probably) better off avoiding.

Rethinking Mobile Management

One of the most important decisions in shaping your mobile strategy is choosing the right management model—especially for organisations managing a fleet of 50 or more devices, such as Local Government, Health and Social Service organisations.

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer. Each approach has its perks—and its pitfalls. What matters most is choosing a path that suits your team, your budget, and your risk appetite.

Company-Owned Devices

For some organisations, keeping things simple, means owning the devices outright.

The perks of company-owned devices:

Lower costs all round—thanks to bulk-buying quality devices at great rates, placing them all on best-value charity telco pricing, and tapping into telco tech funds to keep your gear up to date.
Tighter control—you know what’s out there and can manage it easily.
Standardisation—everyone’s on the same type of device, which makes support and training smoother .
Better compliance—when you’re dealing with sensitive data or client records, this really matters.

Things to watch:

It’ll cost more up front—buying and maintaining a fleet of phones can be a significant upfront cost.
There’s admin involved—procurement, asset tracking, repairs, replacements. Someone’s got to manage it all.
You need a plan—without a refresh strategy, your tech will age and likely let you down.

But don’t worry, management of company-owned devices is in our wheelhouse.

Despite the upfront investment, many organisations find company-owned fleets to be more manageable, secure, and cost-effective over time—especially when paired with a clear lifecycle strategy.

And if you can access a technology fund through your telco provider, then there’s a chance that will contribute towards your hardware outlay.

Managing the Fleet: Outsourced vs Self-Managed

Once you’ve considered company-owned devices as the best model for your organisation, the next decision is how to manage it. Some organisations prefer to keep things in-house, while others see the value in outsourcing to a specialist partner.

Outsourced Mobile Management

For many mid-sized and larger organisations, outsourcing the day-to-day management of their mobile fleet just makes sense. It removes the administrative burden from internal teams and ensures devices are managed proactively by people who live and breathe telco.

The benefits of outsourcing:

Less internal drain—your team stays focused on core work, not chasing lost phones or updating spreadsheets.
End-to-end support—from procurement to lifecycle management, troubleshooting, repairs and replacements.
Better visibility—with usage, billing and device status all tracked in one place.
Fewer surprises—proactive oversight means fewer billing blowouts and less downtime.

It’s a model that delivers consistency, clarity and cost control—without tying up internal resources.

Self-Managed Mobile Fleets

Some organisations choose to manage their company-owned devices internally. This can work well when there’s existing capacity in IT or operations teams, and a strong asset management process already in place.

Things to consider with self-management:

You’ll need systems and time—tracking devices, usage and repairs takes more effort than many expect.
Fit-for-purpose matters—without a clear user-case strategy, it’s easy to mismatch devices to roles. Field staff might end up with the wrong gear for the job, or underpowered phones that don’t keep up.
Procurement can get clunky—managing quotes, approvals, and telco interactions adds to the admin load.
Lifecycle planning is critical—without a refresh strategy, you risk ending up with ageing phones that are slow, unreliable, or held together with tape.
MDM integration is a must—Mobile Device Management helps keep devices secure and manageable, but it requires setup, licensing, and ongoing oversight.

For organisations with the internal capacity, structure, and systems in place, self-management can work. It’s important to weigh up the full resource commitment—and the opportunity cost of not outsourcing.

Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD)

You might be tempted to use some form of a BYOD model, whether it’s BYOD for a select group of staff, and providing company-owned devices to others.

BYOD tends to be offered as a workaround when staff aren’t keen on the standard company handset and want to avoid carrying both a personal and a work phone.

A monthly subsidy or reimbursement can be offered to help staff cover usage or upgrades. The truth is that the subsidy can often cost more than then price of the charity pricing plan and handsets that you may be entitled to. So, you’d want to do the financial modelling early to avoid overspending.

The upsides of BYOD:

Less upfront spend—you’re not buying phones for everyone.
Familiarity—staff already know how to use their own devices.
More flexibility—especially for remote or hybrid workers, and those who don’t want to carry multiple phones.

But there’s a catch:

Security’s the big one. Only around 40% of organisations have formal BYOD-specific security policies, which means a lot of personal phones are floating around with work emails and client info, unprotected and untracked.
Staff are often unwilling to use their own data, so the organisation ends up needing to provide a mobile broadband dongle and data plan for each device.
Tech support is tricky when everyone’s on different devices, networks, settings and capabilities, particularly when it comes to running a specific work application that won’t function on all devices.
It’s harder to enforce standards, from password strength to app use, when phones aren’t owned by the organisation. Many BYOD policies are missing device ‘currency’ and the need to keep personal devices up to date—a policy that is almost impossible to manage.
Employment contracts are pretty vague about whether a mobile phone is included — even though, in reality, many organisations are actually expected to provide the tools people need to do their job.

Managing BYOD

Mobile Device Management (MDM) systems help enforce security across personal phones—think remote wiping, encryption and app control.
Regular updates and patches keep software vulnerabilities at bay.
Staff education—because sometimes, the weakest link is someone clicking on a “You’ve won an iPad” text message.

Why Strategy Matters — And What It Costs If You Don’t Have One

Irrespective of the management model, what really matters is having a plan.

Too often, not-for-profits get stuck in a cycle of reactive decisions—using whatever’s on hand when something breaks, stretching phones well past their use-by date, or leaving staff to sort it out themselves.

Here’s what that looks like on the ground:

Outdated or unsuitable phones that don’t suit the job, can’t install organisations apps, frustrate staff, and slow things down.
No oversight—you’re paying for phones you didn’t know you had or doubling up on services.
No refresh cycle—leads to tech failures right when you need reliability most.
Security holes big enough to drive a ute through, especially if BYOD is being done on a handshake and good intentions.

Bottom line? Doing nothing costs more than you think— In dollars, in headaches, and in missed chances to run a smoother operation.

Our Approach: Purpose-Driven, People-Centred, Vendor-Neutral

We’re not here to sell you phones.

We’re here to help you build a mobile strategy and management system that works—for your team, your clients, and your budget. Whether you’re managing 50 devices or 5,000, we make the whole process easier, smarter, and a whole lot less stressful.

Here’s how we help:

Independent, vendor-neutral advice—we’re not tied to brands or telcos.
Access to charity pricing and better telco deals—saving you real money.
User-case strategy and device matching—so people get the right gear for the job.
Streamlined procurement—less admin, fewer headaches.
Lifecycle and refresh planning—so you don’t end up with 5-year-old phones held together with tape.
MDM integration—for secure, simple device management.

We’ve done it all—from small pilots to full organisation-wide rollouts across the country—and we bring confidence, structure and support from day one.

Client case studies

Outsourced management of company-owned devices

Anglicare Victoria

Challenge: Not only did Anglicare Victoria want to reduce the total cost of ownership associated with mobile devices distributed regionally across the state, they also wanted complete transparency of costs and a reduction in administrative overhead. Staff were using a mix of devices—some outdated , different brands, and some unnecessarily high-end. This created frustration and inconsistency .

What we did: We ran a role-based assessment and matched devices and plans to actual user needs, and

created a lifecycle management strategy of android mobile devices to allow effective management of inventory through model retirement and introduction, ensuring sufficient supply
we have sourced wholesale pricing for new devices and accessories and refreshed thousands of devices as Anglicare’s holistic Telco partner since 2019
implemented Mobile Device Management (MDM) across the organisation, via targeted training, change management, and ongoing end-user support
created a process to refresh devices in batches to users regionally.

Result: Reduced total device costs, improved user satisfaction, higher levels of control over appropriate device use and better support outcomes thanks to appropriately matched tech.

Read more on Anglicare Victoria staying in control of telco expenses with our Telco Management service.

Brotherhood of St Laurence

Challenge: An expiring telco contract prompted the Brotherhood of St Laurence to review its approach to the managing its 1,000+ mobile fleet.

What we did:

conducted a strategic review, analysing the options for BYOD versus company-owned
reviewed existing fleet to confirm what devices were suitable and when others needed to be replaced to inform future budgets
assessed device options paired with user roles
leveraged charity pricing to get the best plans, shared data pool and tech fund
sourced wholesale pricing for new devices
developed a streamlined process for ongoing procurement and management of devices
enrolled all new devices in MDM software for maximum security and
coordinated a staged rollout.