Possible to change existing installations to "Elevated Privileges"?

We have our Adobe 2017 products all installed from packages that do NOT have "Elevated Privileges" on. We have a weekly routine that runs "RemoteUpdateManager" that updates all installations on Macs, and we've always performed major upgrades with new packages when we are ready. This was required for our production workflow that goes across multiple departments with shared files, and some of them have third party plug-ins.

However we have one "Video Production" group that are not part of this workflow, and so they are asking to keep up with the latest video apps at all times. So right now they are ready to upgrade to 2018 versions.

Is it possible to send a command to their systems to change their permissions so they can upgrade them themselves with their existing installation (which includes many plugins)?

Is the ONLY way to get elevated privileges is thru a package with that option set on?