Apple has moved from the creative world and become a familiar part of the business technology environment. As adoption grows, IT teams have more to consider, says Clayton Campbell, founder of Onsite IT. Here he explains that while supporting the devices is one part of the job, building an Apple practice around them is where businesses need to focus next.
In many South African businesses, Apple has grown within an environment originally designed around Windows. The devices may be enrolled in an existing management platform and subject to company policies, although that does not necessarily mean the Apple environment has been deliberately designed around how Apple works.
A good Apple practice starts with understanding what needs to be in place for Apple to work as intended within the organisation. Existing tools may form part of that environment, while the way devices are configured and managed needs to account for how Apple is designed to work.
Six disciplines behind a good Apple practice
Onsite identifies six disciplines that provide a useful way to assess an Apple environment: Consistent (standards), Ready (day one and after), Trusted (identity), Proven (protection and evidence), Updated (currency) and Accountable (ownership).
The first discipline, Consistent, covers standards. It is about knowing what a good Mac looks like within the organisation. Businesses need to define the required security settings and applications rather than allowing the standard to develop device by device. A defensible Apple standard should be anchored to a recognised macOS benchmark, with any exceptions deliberately documented.
How a Mac reaches the employee and what happens to it afterwards form the basis of Ready, the day one and after discipline. A device should arrive ready for the employee to work without IT having to manually build it or spend hours resolving configuration issues. That experience also needs to continue beyond deployment as applications change and the device moves through its lifecycle.
Trusted is the identity discipline. It connects the person using the Mac with the access they have been given. Employees need access to the systems required for their roles without accumulating unnecessary permissions or relying on disconnected credentials. When someone joins the business, changes roles or leaves, their access needs to change with them.
For Proven, which covers protection and evidence, having security controls configured is only part of the job. IT also needs to know that those protections are in place on the device and be able to demonstrate their status when required. This is particularly important for South African organisations that need visibility over how devices accessing company information are being managed.
“Security cannot depend on assuming a policy has applied correctly,” explains Campbell. “You need evidence of the state of the device and a clear view of where something has fallen out of compliance.”
Keeping Macs on supported operating system versions falls under Updated, the currency discipline. Apple releases operating system and security updates on its own cadence, which means organisations need a defined approach to keeping devices current. Leaving updates entirely to users can create inconsistency, while pushing them without considering the Apple environment can interfere with the applications people rely on to work.
The final discipline, Accountable, covers ownership. It addresses who is accountable for the Apple environment once the devices are in use. When responsibility is divided across different IT functions or individual business units, issues can remain unresolved because nobody has a complete view of the environment. Clear ownership gives the business a defined point of accountability for how Apple is managed over time.
From managing Macs to building an Apple practice
Building an Apple practice does not require businesses to replace every technology they already use. It requires an understanding of where Apple needs purpose-built capability and how that capability fits into the wider IT environment.
Apple-first management platforms like Jamf, which is purpose-built to deploy and manage Apple devices throughout their lifecycle, can form part of that approach. The technology needs to sit within clearly defined standards and processes, with someone accountable for the environment it supports.
For businesses trying to understand where they stand today, Campbell suggests taking the six disciplines and assessing each one as owned, partly owned or nobody’s.
Working through those areas can quickly show where management has developed unevenly. A business may have automated device deployment while offboarding still depends on someone completing a manual process. Security controls may be configured, yet IT may struggle to produce evidence that they are active across the estate. Updates may be available without a defined process for making sure they reach every device.
As Apple becomes an established part of the workplace, the management environment around it needs the same attention. Because as Campbell points out, “Once Macs become part of how your business works, simply having a way to manage them is no longer enough. You need an Apple practice that was designed to do the job properly.”