Bring Your Own Device (byod)

Introduction

(What is BYOD?)

CEO's, CFO's, CIO's, knowledge workers, IT managers and many employees and in some cases departments of businesses have for years been bringing their own devices for use in the workplace. Today it is an actual route that companies take in order to better there outcomes as a company, to improve employee satisfaction and stay relevant in an ever changing world. This is known as BYOD. BYOD is a new acronym that is rapidly becoming embedded in the business narrative about technology and learning, it stands for Bring Your Own Device and is also known as consumerized IT. It means mobile workers bringing their own mobile devices, such as smartphones, laptops and PDAs, into the workplace for use and connectivity. The concept of "bring your own device" (BYOD) is a growing trend for Business IT. There are a variety of benefits to allowing users to supply their own PCs and mobile devices, but there are also some concerns ,many consumers expect to be able to use personal smartphones and mobile devices at work which could be a dream or disaster for many companies and there IT managers. Now that BYOD is better known one can better understand different aspects and perspective of BYOD.

Benefits of BYOD

(From Business perspective)

BYOD has many pros and cons pertaining to organisations and to the IT departments that supports these organisations and will be mentioned to get a grip on what BYOD entails for organisations and IT managers. For many businesses the idea of "Bring your own Device" (BYOD) is one that could change the way that employees do work. Sometimes it is the employee's choice to use his or her own device. Oftentimes, however it is the employer who encourages the use of personal devices as a way to save corporate money. For every employee who uses his or her own smartphone or laptop, that's one less item that the business needs to purchase and maintain. Businesses that embrace BYOD have some advantages over competitors. For starters, BYOD programs generally shift costs to the user. With the worker paying for most, or all of the costs for the hardware, voice or data services, and other associated expenses, companies save a lot of money in that aspect of BYOD and often one might think that users or employees would revolt to the idea of having to pay for the costs but a recent report by Good Technology State of BYOD Report shows that "50 percent of companies with BYOD models requiring employees to cover all costs and they are happy to do so."

Having said that, it is only half of those employees surveyed which are happy, other companies implement measures where the company pays part-amount per employee on a monthly basis to help with the costs of using their own devices in conjunction with BYOD models, also stipends are being used as norm for BYOD. Organisations do not and should not only see BYOD as a way to cutting cost as there are also many other benefits or if you will "pros" to having a BYOD model in place. Employee satisfaction and employee productivity are just two other benefits organisations see from using BYOD models in a work place. In saying that one can say that employees will feel more at ease in having devices they are comfortable using and in using a device they are comfortable with means that they require less training and support in using said devices. This in turn holds benefit to organisations as it increases the aspect of employees being more productive and satisfied, which lead to the organisation being obtained more efficiently also as stated the organisation saves on training and support making BYOD cost effective when employees bring their own devices and integrate them to do work. Another benefit is that employees are able to take work home and in theory reach deadlines faster causing more work to be complete and reduced stress levels in organisations employees. These are just few of the benefits that have an immense effect on the organisation having a BYOD policy.

In other cases some companies believe that providing the devices for employee use is the better option as it in turn gives the organisation a certain degree of control of what an employee can use the device for also making it easier for the IT department and IT managers to secure and provide support for these devices as it creates a more a particular device to be used by the employees, in comparison to each employee bringing different devices to be used for work in the organisation.

The ultimate example of a device an organisation could provide for employees could be the use of Apple's IPad as with the advances in Apple making it easy to transfer documents and other aspects of work being done from one device to another through different apps which are able to use formats and also Intel CPU's integrated in apple devices to provide a broad perspective of apples devices to be used in conjunction with other branded devices.

As one can see there could be endless opportunity for organisations to integrate BYOD policies into said organisations and achieve goals and objectives of the organisation and in turn create a sound working environment for employees.

Negatives of BYOD

(From Business perspective)

Although there are many benefits in implementing BYOD policies, organisations and IT managers should see BYOD policies as a "double edged blade" as they are also negatives or "cons" in implementing BYOD policies. Some negatives or potential issues include Data control and Data integrity, where if an employee uses a personal device they maintain that the device is well protected from components in browsing the internet or having personal data that could cause harm to device through bad files or viruses.

Also that the device has sufficient protection or back-ups from unforeseen circumstances such as theft, negligence or even fires are some examples of such circumstances. Also allowing organisations networks to be accessed on personal devices can seem like too much of a risk for organisations who handle highly sensitive data, which is where organisations fear worst as they have very little control over what the employee does away from the work place due to employees being able to use personal devices and could also cause trust issues between organisations and its employees. In another case some employees would not approve of having to purchase a device for work as mentioned before, this could be resolved by the organisation actually supplying the devices intended