• 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.

It’s estimated that in today’s workforce, some thirty six percent of businesses now fully support BYOD – Bring Your Own Device, at least for mobile devices. Depending on the surveys you read, that figure rises to eighty six percent if you widen the scope to include any kind of support at all, even if grudgingly given. Some people hail this policy as a great way forward in motivating staff productivity, while others take issue with the potential for security vulnerabilities and the burden of supporting a more diverse range of equipment.

Telling someone to BYOD is literally a four-letter word in many IT departments. Also known as “bring your own device,” BYOD is a cloud-based concept which allows mobile devices to access a private or corporate network. Employees can access the network using their tablets, cell phones, laptops and other mobile devices.

Regardless of how you may feel about BYOD (bring your own device), employees have been doing it already for years and the trend is growing. The meteoritic rise of social media coupled with users who want access to corporate data while on the road has strengthened users' position. Businesses have begun to look at the benefits of it such as cost savings in machinery, but security risks still remain. Let's look at how you can make BYOD work for your company.

Increasing numbers of small and medium-sized businesses are adopting a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) approach to provision their employees, but this decision has large implications when it comes to the type of IT services that such companies will need. Although every business is at least slightly different, some common trends are already clear in terms of the challenges that a BYOD approach poses once employees become used to high mobility.

Now that BYOD (bring your own device) is such a dominant part of the workplace in many small and medium-sized businesses, many firms are beginning to look for additional ways in which these devices can be leveraged to increase productivity, and along with it, profits.  IT consultants can be invaluable sources of information about how to accomplish these goals as part of an overall BYOD approach to processing daily workflow.

IT security specialists working with small and medium-sized businesses are well aware of the potential pitfalls of a BYOD approach to provisioning employees with mobile handsets and tablets. The need for such awareness was underlined this month by news that the Apple App Store's efforts to keep out malware did not managed to stop an app known as ‘Find and Call’ from being listed. The same app also made its way into the Google Play marketplace, with the result that Android as well as iOS devices became vulnerable to the Trojan.

Apple's next-generation operating system, iOS 6, was announced last month and is expected to become available to iPhone users sometime in the next few months. Although the updated interface will include some new features that could be useful in a work environment, an important consideration in today's BYOD business world, it will also present IT support personnel with new challenges to surmount.

According to Jesse Lipson, Vice President and Data Sharing General Manager for virtualization leader Citrix, the company's main plan for the smartphone and tablet market is to leverage its web interface, CloudGateway 2, to provide applications to mobile devices, including full support for native HTML 5, iOS and Android apps.  Lipson acknowledges, however, that many companies are not yet ready for the MAM (mobile application management) paradigm.  Instead, small and medium-sized businesses are just beginning to dip their toes into mobile workflow by adopting MDM (mobile device management) systems.

IT support experts are paying close attention to a newly announced ‘mobile device strategy’ for the US Department of Defense.  The strategy emphasizes the essential nature of employee training in order for these devices to be used to their highest potential in the workplace.  According to Teresa Takai, the Chief Information Officer for the department, "Although mobile devices are the new and popular item in today's commercial market, this strategy is not simply about embracing the newest technology; it is about keeping the DoD workforce relevant in an era when information and cyberspace play a critical role in mission success."