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While some corporate clients are starting to move away from Blackberry towards Android and iOS, many aren’t. Not only is there a strong loyal base, but the cost to change devices would be expensive.

Bring Your Own Network (BYON), an offshoot of the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend, is steadily circulating in businesses around the world. BYON allows users to establish their own mobile networks even within the vicinity of their corporate network. The meteoric rise of BYODs and BYONs stems from their capacity to organically meld with cloud computing systems. However, since most mobile devices have the capability to create dynamic area networks (DANs) through embedded wireless hotspot features, the threat to internal networks becomes more imminent – stretching far beyond the presence of individual devices to rogue individual networks.

As small and medium sized businesses become bigger players in the world of business, they are looking to save money and cut unnecessary costs wherever possible. IT departments have become the most commonplace sector to scale down, with most companies looking to cut at least a quarter of their IT related costs. A fairly newer but extremely common way to cut costs for IT departments has been the adoption of the BYOD philosophy. Businesses can benefit from the fact that most of their employees now carry their own mobile devices for personal use, and can simply equip the devices with security rather than pay the ongoing cost of a business-only device. However convenient the BYOD movement is, employers and users alike should take measures to secure these devices as much as possible.

Recent research has shown that SMB's have been slow to adopt mobility solutions for fear of the threats posed by breaches in mobile security. With serious concerns around the security of the Android operating system, and the U.S. smartphone market predicted to grow by almost 30% in the coming years, it is crucial that the reported 86% of U.S. companies who have not yet adopted mobile security as standard do so quickly in order to secure critical enterprise information.

Technology never stops evolving. And the ever changing Information Technology landscape— now including cloud computing and BYOD (Bring Your Own Device)—has had an enormous impact on IT consultants and the challenges they face. What are some of the ways companies and their IT departments are evolving to meet these new challenges? Read below to examine a few hot trends in network management.

As any CIO, IT professional or manager of operations can tell you, most employees have fully embraced the idea of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) in the workplace. But is BYOD good for a business? What are the advantages? What are the risks?

BYOD isn’t a fading trend. It’s here to stay. And Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies in today’s business world are growing in acceptance faster than our mobile devices change. What does this mean for your enterprise IT network? Challenges, challenges, challenges to be sure. But perhaps it also means an opportunity to be in the forefront of IT security innovation--by implementing solutions that work.

• Happier employees: By allowing them to use the device they like and that can do the job, employees will appreciate the flexibility to do their job in the way that suits them. Happier employees can be more productive employees.
• Lower costs for more current technology: Because updates occur frequently, purchasing new software and/or hardware with each update can increase your expenditures and reduce your bottom line. But when employees are content to use their personal devices for work purposes, your organization gets a chance at trying out the latest technology without necessarily needing to purchase it immediately. Additionally, employees can tell you the features and pitfalls of each new technology. And that can help you stay current with your clients.
• Acceptance: Consumer devices will enter the corporate world – therefore it is better to find the right way to address, and possibly even embrace, this change instead of engaging in a tug of war with employees.

• Find out what employees are using and for what reasons.
• Determine the greatest security gaps in the devices that employees are using. With this knowledge, your IT support or MSP can prevent issues or fix disruptions as easily as possible to ensure business continuity.
• Apply limits on what people can do. Not that anyone likes constraints, but identifying the most likely breeches and ensuring they are not used or encountered can help minimize disruptions. Documenting these reasons in your organization’s policies and procedures ensures that everyone is on the same page.
• Security: To manage security issues, applying authentication, defined authorization, rules, password management, and supplying credentials to access company networks, documents, and emails can also minimize potential intrusion. Additionally, if someone wants to use new technology, get them to inform IT before doing so in order to reduce potential security risks.

 

Regardless of ownership, BYOD is still the usage of devices to perform work, and they are subject to the same infiltrations as your company’s systems. Therefore, working with, instead of against, workplace and technology changes can go a long way in creating a workplace brimming with trust and flexibility. Implementing the mechanisms and policies to ensure security can also show that BYOD is accepted by your organization. If you need some direction to implement BYOD, contact a local IT company that has the knowledge and expertise in this domain to help you find the best combination of flexibility and security.