It’s 10pm, Do You Know Where Your Macs Are?

Cary Hill – December 16, 2024

What’s the price for peace of mind?

A recent survey found that 55% of businesses provide or allow Macs in the company network. With Apple Silicon and now Apple Intelligence driving business adoption, companies small to large are still struggling to properly manage their Mac assets. In this post, we’ll explore why keeping track of your business’s Macs is critical and how a service like Digital Fix Consulting can streamline the process.

As you read this blog post, think about your own business – is your Mac secure? What if you lost it between connecting flights? What if it was stolen?

But I have a password on it, so I’m good, might be your reply. A quick Google search can yield how to get around it. Or worse, the person who found or stole it might contact you and blackmail you with threats of leaking your sensitive information unless you pay up.

Nope, I’m very good with my MacBook Pro and it never leaves my sight, you confidently say. But can you say the same for every employee? It’s impossible to ensure every employee is keeping all their company Macs in their sight at all times. And what if you have a disgruntled employee who might do something to hurt you or the business using their company-issued Mac?

It’s too much stress to keep up with.

Peace of mind comes with knowing that the computers and mobile devices used by your employees are secure, trackable, and not possible leaky faucets of critical company (or personal) data or secrets. Below are a few of the major reasons why asset management is critical to your Macs.

1. Data Security: Protect Your Business and Your Clients

Data breaches are more than just headlines—they’re business risks. Managing your Macs effectively ensures:

• Software Updates: Regular updates protect against the latest cyber threats. Updates also prevent older versions of software from being attacked through known exploits or vulnerabilities. Apple releases patches and updates to fix previous issues. Leaving any business device on aging software creates risk!
• Device Tracking: Know where each Mac is and who’s using it, reducing the risk of data theft. In the event a device is lost or stolen, you can track it or lock it to prevent any secure or sensitive data getting out there.
• Compliance: Many industries require strict data security protocols. Proper asset management keeps you compliant and audit-ready. Proper asset management also means having the tools to lock or remote erase a device with sensitive data on it. Many hospital systems and healthcare providers have this requirement in order to comply with HIPPA.

Tip: The use of a Mobile Device Management (MDM) software like Jamf or Mosyle makes it easy to schedule and “push out” software updates to all your devices at the same time, ensuring not only are they up to date but they are all in parity with each other.

2. Financial Accountability: Know Where Your Investment Goes

Every Mac is a valuable asset. Proper asset management provides:

• Budget Management: This allows you or your accountant to answer “How many Macs do we have? How old are they?” etc to better prepare for refreshing old devices with new ones.
• Depreciation Tracking: Accurately record the value of each device for tax and accounting purposes. Can’t claim it if you forgot about it!
• Reduced Loss: Prevent losses by ensuring no asset goes unaccounted for.
• Smooth Your Path to an IPO: Part of the preparation to take a company public for their IPO is a complete accounting of all the business assets to calculate valuation. If your business has spent the past ten years buying Macs from Amazon, Best Buy, or wandering into the Apple Store with a company p-card, chances are you don’t have all your receipts or even know what happened to those Macs. By having all your devices managed, there’s a complete record at any given time!

Pro Insight: For Apple products, using Apple Business Manager (ABM) is crucial not only for using other tools like Mobile Device Management but also for purchasing records. When Digital Fix sells Apple devices to a client, we place the serial numbers directly into the client’s ABM; they can lose their emailed receipt and all paper copies, but the purchase history will always be in ABM.

3. Uniformity Across the Company at Onboarding

Businesses can grow fast. Before you know it, you’re hiring and handing a computer to the new employee and hoping they’re hard at work in their first hour. Chances are, they’re not going to be very productive because:

• Company Email: Not only does an email address need to be created for them, but the proper email client app setup on the device.
• Tools: The employee is going to need the applications and software the company uses to join in the work. Each application will need to be downloaded, installed, and signed into. Does the person handing the new employee their Mac even know all the apps they need to have? Imagine the new hire having to constantly stop working to find out how to get an application they need.
• Network Access: The company might have multiple wireless networks to choose from and sign in. The company may also use VPN, which would need to be configured. Will the new hire be able to access their work from home when they’re remote?
• This is My Computer Now: Did the employee just sign into their personal iCloud on their work Mac and begin syncing personal photos and documents to it? This immediately begins a blurring of work vs personal on their company device and can potentially lead to sensitive company data leaking.

Pro Insight: Creating a profile of how a company Mac should look is the first step in addressing all the above. You should be able to sit back and say “Every company Mac should have software X, Y, and Z on it already, iCloud should be locked out, network configured already,” etc. Companies like Digital Fix can also get businesses to something called “zero-touch deployment” where a Mac (or iPad or iPhone) will automatically set itself up by installing the necessary applications and network configurations on the very first boot. This means employees located anywhere can receive a brand new Mac, turn it on, and be ready for work on their first day in minutes!

This leads directly to the next item:

4. Scaling Your Fleet

As your business grows and you march towards IPO (or acquisition), the need for more company computers grows exponentially. When you have three employees and go to five, it may not matter as much but going from 50 to 75 does.

You’re going to need a lot of computers ready – and fast!

By having your company assets already under management, this becomes a million times easier to solve. You already have a company profile for your Mac so it’s much easier to purchase and hand out 25 Macs to new hires and know they’ll all have the same software, same network access, and so forth in a matter of minutes. Their Macs will also join the company “fleet” of other Macs in future software updates to ensure the new hires all fall in step with everyone else.

Now imagine setting up 25 Macs by hand for 25 new hires that start tomorrow…

5. Monitoring

Last, but not least, is monitoring company devices. While the average business owner may not like the idea of playing Big Brother and spying on employee Macs, the truth is you need to be able to monitor usage and keep an eye out for the occasional bad actor. A properly managed Mac locks out the potential for misuse, but if an employee were so motivated they can find ways around.

Monitoring also works both ways – it helps identify intrusions or attempted hacking of employee devices from outside the company. If your business deals in valuable information or data that can be exploited, your employees can be targeted from the outside. The easiest way to get into a company network is from an employee computer.

Monitoring is important too for companies with sensitive intellectual property or customer personal data. You don’t want employees emailing proprietary information to the competitor they’re trying to get hired at. Monitoring company assets also makes the legal and HR departments jobs much easier.

At Digital Fix, we’ve seen client employees use their work computers for everything from inappropriate web surfing to mining Bitcoin on their work computer. Proper monitoring allows your IT or leadership to be notified if a company Mac is being used in the wrong way or potentially under attack from outside.