Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)
Access corporate data from personal devices securely
With Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) employees are encouraged to use their own personal mobile devices to access corporate data and systems. It gives them the freedom to use personal smartphones and tablets of their choice to get work done anytime, anywhere.
IT Force has experience in implementing BYOD for clients in a number of different sectors. We can take you through what is required for the successful implementation of BYOD in your business, such as a mobile device management solution and a BYOD policy document.
The benefits of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)
- Increased productivity – your employees can now get work done anywhere, on the train, at the airport, in a coffee shop, the list is endless. Decisions can be made quicker, as your employees will no longer need to wait until they are back in the office to access any files, documents and reports that they need to consult.
- Employee satisfaction – employees get to work using a device of their own choice and one that they are comfortable with. Having the same device for work and leisure also removes the need to carry around multiple devices and their own individual accessories.
- Cost savings – if an employee is using their own personal device, the business will save on hardware and maintenance costs.
There are some downsides to Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and these include:
- Security – sensitive corporate data may now be accessed remotely via a mobile device. If the device were lost or stolen there could be a breach in security. For this reason, it is vital that the IT department maintain complete control over the mobile devices and the applications that are installed on them.
- Resources – BYOD can bring with it a lot of headaches for IT. Incompatibility issues arise due to the large number of devices from different manufacturers that are available to consumers.
Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) in your Business – What needs to happen?
For any company that is looking to implement BYOD into their business, they will need to ensure that they have a software application that will manage the devices, they will need a BYOD policy that outlines the responsibilities of both the employer and the employee, and they will need an agreement that users must sign, acknowledging their understanding and acceptance of the policy.
If a company has informally gone down the BYOD route through natural progression need to put these in place as soon as possible.
BYOD and Mobile Device Management
Our mobile device management solution, MaaS360, delivers an easy to use platform that makes it possible for IT to instantly start managing personal devices, without compromising the user experience, security or privacy. MaaS360 provides flexible approaches for enrolment, asset management, policy enforcement and the distribution of profiles, apps and docs, all based on device ownership whether corporate- or employee-owned.
With MaaS360, organizations can rapidly give employees secure access to corporate data from their personal devices. And with the industry’s broadest device support, intuitive workflows, set-and-forget deployment options, and advanced management and security features, MaaS360 makes BYOD simple.
Bring Your Own Device Policy Document
Drafting the BYOD policy document gives companies an opportunity to look at all aspects of how introducing BYOD will impact on the company. Security issues will need to be addressed and the mobile device management solution that is chosen will need to address these issues. The company will need to determine if limitations will be placed on employees in terms of the browsers that are supported, the applications that can be downloaded, the degree to which they can access corporate data from their device, etc. Consideration will also have to be made of the level of support that will be required of IT and the impact that this will have on existing resources.