Whether companies like it or not, their employees are using mobile devices in the workplace. And they are using them not only to check personal email, play games and shop, but if allowed by the company, to access corporate email and, in some cases, productivity apps.
It’s a foregone conclusion that this trend—dubbed BYOD (for Bring Your Own Device)—isn’t going away. In fact, virtually all recent surveys and market research signify an upward trend. This trend is also referred to as the Consumerization of IT.
Companies are beginning to have no choice but to allow their employees to use smartphones and tablets for work purposes. The best way to do that is by using web-based business applications with mobile capabilities. That’s getting easier and easier, as more and more web-based business software companies create specific versions for iOS, Android and sometimes, BlackBerry.
The trend may causes a multitude of issues for comanies including security and determing which devices to provide support for. On the security front, that means keeping track of what devices are accessing corporate resources. That can mean implementing some type of Mobile Device Management (MDM) or Mobile Access Management (MAM) solution.
Making BYOD work in an environment where employees use web-based software also means setting up numerous corporate policies. At a minimum, these should include having users agree to install, or have the IT department install, whatever security, monitoring or tracking software the organization requires. Users also should be required to password-protect the devices and register them with the IT department. All devices should support 802.1x authentication.
Done right, the BYOD movement can mean greater productivity for companies. Employees can be productive while in transit or at remote locations. They can collaborate with team members in real time. They can submit expense reports and scan restaurant receipts. The possibilities are endless. Instead of fighting the movement, it makes sense to join it.
Thanks for the insight! There are so many pros and cons to BYOD, it is really something that companies have to weigh the pros and cons of. Hopefully there will be a way in the near future to secure all of the private info sent through networks.
When we started looking at various BYOD systems, tools and apps for the doctors in our hospital to work with, the feedback we got from them is that they really didn't like the idea of IT having access and control over their phones.
On the other hand, they were texting patient info, which opens them up to HIPAA related compliance law suits.
We ended up solving some of the issue by using a phone app called Tigertext - which is a closed text message network in which the text messages delete themselves off of the device/phone after a set period of time. Works well and has been a big help.
Now just need something like it for email.
I think BYOD is going to have several implementation variations, depending on the size of the operation and the legal requirements. Some may use a large enterprise solution to completely access and control the device, and others may use apps and other focused and smaller solutions.
Here is another good article on this:
http://byod.us/bring-your-own-device-importance-of-defining-business-objectives/
Spot on with this post. One more additional piece of advice: unless your company has an IT department, hire an IT consultant who is well versed in mobile device management. There are unique policies & security procedures that need to be in place before these devices have access to the company network, even if you're a small company...
-Jim Van
Logicomm