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JUNE 2015
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business
solutions
T
he desire employees have to use their own laptops,
tablets, and smartphones for work is the “single most
radical shift in the economics of client computing for
business since PCs invaded the workplace,” according to
Gartner, a major information technology research firm. Bring
Your Own Device (BYOD) policies permit employees to bring
personally owned mobile devices to their workplace, and
to use them to access privileged company information and
applications. However, along with the obvious advantages
of this arrangement come new concerns over security and
bandwidth demands that can challenge businesses not
equipped to handle them.
BYOD benefits both employees and employers. AMay 2013
survey of six countries by Cisco’s Internet Business Solutions
Group consulting unit indicated employees with their own
devices said they were happier and reported significant
productivity gains. In the U.S., BYOD participants in this
survey saved 81 minutes per week, which amounts to just
over 70 hours per year.
Security is a Concern
The biggest issue with BYOD is security. Your company data can
be exposed by sitting on a remote device, whether it’s Android-
or iOS-based. For example, say an employee gets a new iPad
or smartphone and wants to use the device to do company work
offsite. They might start using a solution like Dropbox to transfer
data from their work computer to their personal device for later use.
However, Dropbox may not be secure enough to keep data safe.
If your company has employees using a variety of personal
devices, there are ways to provide security both in terms of
delivering information and securing the devices themselves. If
you don’t have the in-house resources to understand and manage
the deployment issues associated with BYOD, consider seeking
the advice of IT professionals.
More Bandwidth Needed
Another key issue with BYOD is its effect on bandwidth
requirements. A company not using mobile devices is usually
only a consumer of bandwidth—browsing the Web and down-
loading data. But with BYOD, the company becomes a provider
of information to users outside of its walls. To accommodate
BYOD, your business may need a wireless environment with
significantly more bandwidth.
What’s ahead for BYOD? In a word, growth. Gartner expects
that nearly 50 percent of employers will demand that employees
provide and pay for their own devices for work purposes by 2017.
So, if you haven’t yet started planning for BYOD, do it ASAP.
To discuss your company’s bandwidth needs as they
relate to BYOD, call Blue Valley Tele-Communications
at 877-876-1228.
What You
Need to Know
About
BYOD
Bring Your Own Device can also
bring problems if your business
isn’t prepared