These are features of the exchange server.
They are there to keep company data safe. I have the same features on my server at work. I would suggest using the Outlook App, it is free, then the company cannot wipe your phone as the data is only contained in the app. This is what I advise my users to do when they are using their personal phones.
Company phones are a different matter. They are setup like you normally would setup email, and the policy's on the server are sent to the phone.
Wiping of the phone allows admins to wipe the phone if it is lost or stolen, or the employee refuses to turn the device back in when they leave the company. I actually had that happen to me, an employee left, took the phone with them to a competitor and thought we would not notice. I sent the wipe command and got a reply back that it was successful and then called AT&T and had them suspend the number. Rumor had it this employee was giving a Best Buy employee an earful wanting them to pull the pictures off their SIM card a day later. I also had a high level person in the office lose their iPhone. So the wipe command was sent. That is why that command exists. And any good admin would have two factor authentication setup on the administrator account to prevent malicious access, I do.
There are other features like the ability to shut off the camera, Bluetooth and so on, even only allow certain wireless access points to be used. Again, these features are there to keep things safe. One office I worked in would not allow camera phones, so with this you can give someone an iPhone to use for their email and such and disable the camera. Might sound mean, but if the company has high level proprietary designs, they do not want someone snapping pictures of them. There are lots of things you can do, enforce password policy's and so on.
I would use the Outlook app like I mentioned earlier on. It is free and will work with Office 365, so will Word and Excel. You can also use your Touch ID with the Outlook app. So if you are letting your kid play with your phone, they cannot get into your email. An Admin cannot wipe your phone when you are using that or disable anything, Exchange policies do not apply when to the phone when using the Outlook app.
