With technology becoming more mobile, the way we interact with tech has changed considerably. Now that dial-up has evolved to broadband and cellular networks have dramatically improved, technology has allowed people to become more connected than ever. Your business can improve its communications and operations with the right mobile technology.

Let’s face it; running a business can be expensive, and taking any measures possible to mitigate those costs can have huge benefits for your bottom line. One way companies are minimizing costs is by implementing a Bring Your Own Device policy, or BYOD, to allow employees to use their own personal devices for work purposes. We’re here to help you do so without putting security at risk.

Workplace Mobile

Smartphones can certainly be a distraction and largely are a hindrance to productivity. Some businesses deal with it more than others, but a study conducted suggests that employees spend an average of 67 minutes per day on their phones. That means that productivity is at the very least 10 percent lower than it should be… until you factor in the other way that smartphones affect an employee’s performance. 

Let’s go over a few key practices to successfully using MDM to your business’ benefit.

What is Mobile Device Management?

Mobile device management is the application of software solutions that allow you to implement policies that control how users can access your business’ data. This enables your business to improve its data security while implementing a Bring Your Own Device policy.

Here, we’ll go over a few topics that your BYOD rules need to address.

Password Practices and Other Security

It’s hardly a secret that some people utilize lax passwords - especially on their personal devices, where there isn’t an IT department establishing policies to help ensure password strength. According to Pew Research Center, 28 percent of smartphone owners don’t use a screen lock. Obviously, this isn’t something that can be allowed in the business setting.

So, if your employees are going to use their personal devices to access business resources, you need to have a policy that their devices are set to lock after a certain period of inactivity, and require some form of authentication to unlock. Furthermore, the device should further lock down if an incorrect authentication code is input so many times.

Your policy should also include any required security solutions you plan to utilize as part of your mobile monitoring and management toolset. All devices should have antivirus installed, along with mobile device management and unified endpoint management solutions.

Provisioning and Network Security

Provisioning a personal device that is going to be used for company work helps to ensure a few things. Not only does it help to make sure that productivity applications are configured properly, it also helps to boost your security. Furthermore, your network needs to allow your employees’ devices to access the business network - not just a guest network you have set up. Of course, there should be procedures and safeguards in place to ensure that this is done securely.

Tracking, Remote Access, and Data Wiping

Accidents happen, and devices can be lost - and sometimes, stolen. Furthermore, any device that is attached to a company network and has accessed illegal content could possibly leave the company liable - especially if this content was accessed via the company network. Your IT team should have the capability to monitor what websites and content each device included in a BYOD strategy has accessed, as well as to remotely access these devices to help ensure their security should they wind up missing. It also helps if they can implement updates to work solutions and security measures.

If worse comes to worse, it is beneficial to be able to delete all of a device’s data remotely - that way, even if it is stolen, your data won’t be at risk for as long. This also comes in handy if an employee is ever to leave your employ and you want to make sure they no longer have your data (or access to it).

BYOD can offer significant benefits to any organization. To learn more about putting a policy in place at your business, give Coleman Technologies a call at (604) 513-9428.

To begin, let’s briefly review the basic principles of BYOD practices. In essence, rather than providing each employee with a company-supplied device, an employee is allowed to bring in a device that they own and leverage it for work purposes.

Why BYOD Has Become Popular in Workplaces

On the surface, BYOD seems to be the perfect solution - there are even statistics that help to support this position. For instance, companies who embrace BYOD practices save around $350 each year, per employee. Furthermore, using portable devices for work (much like what would be used as part of a Bring Your Own Device practice) has been shown to save employees approximately an hour each day, increasing their productivity by about a third.

This is just the tip of the BYOD-benefits iceberg. There are much more, including:

Access to Better Technology

If you were to list any business’ technology priorities, security and productivity should top the list… but oftentimes, frugality wins the day. Budgetary restrictions and a preference for tried-and-tested solutions frequently means that investments into more recent solutions are often pushed by the wayside. After all, what if the expensive new technology doesn’t work properly? This is frequently why businesses find themselves making due with solutions that really should be replaced. On the other hand, employees likely have no such qualms when they purchase their own devices.

BYOD policies allow a business’ employees to replace their outdated solutions with the reliability of newer, more up-to-date devices… leading to happier, more productive employees.

Reduced Financial Toll on the Business

Like we mentioned, it is fairly common for budgetary concerns to be the driving factor of many business decisions. It isn’t that the company doesn’t want to replace the aging workstations scattered around the office… it just isn’t in the budget. Before Bring Your Own Device emerged, businesses were stuck in a few different money pits. Between providing their employees with devices, maintaining and replacing these devices when they went faulty, and all the other expenses that come from keeping up an IT infrastructure, employers were stuck with a hefty bill.

Nowadays, with many people investing in their own devices and their accessibility, these expenses can largely evaporate. The employer’s investment can be effectively limited to securing access to these devices, allowing funds to be spent on other meaningful initiatives.

Employee Satisfaction

We’ve all experienced the struggle of trying to do work on equipment that just isn’t equipped for what we are trying to do. It can feel like trying to play Yahtzee with loaded dice - it just isn’t going to work, no matter how much effort is put forth. This is the other side of the example that preceded this one. If the aging workstations scattered around the office aren’t replaced due to budgetary concerns, some employees are going to be stuck using them… and they aren’t going to be happy.

As we alluded to as we described the effects that access to improved solutions can bring, an employee who isn’t being hamstrung by their technology is simply going to be more productive and happier with their working situation.

Clearly, BYOD isn’t something that should be dismissed without at least some consideration, but that isn’t to say that it is a perfect solution. There are also potential issues that need to be addressed as a BYOD policy is considered.

The Potential Issues of BYOD

Distractions

For every productivity application available on the Google Play Store, there is at least one application that is decidedly unproductive… at least, in terms of your business and its operations. While you could take steps to prevent these kinds of applications from appearing on devices that you provide, there isn’t much you can do about your employees downloading whatever they want onto their own.

Loss of Control

This is a big issue for businesses, as there are a multitude of ways that their losing control over the devices on their network could impact them. The policies that once prevented vulnerabilities from being leveraged can’t just be installed on an employee’s device without their consent, which many employees may be hesitant to give. This problem becomes even larger if an employee is fired or quits - what happens to the data on their device? How can a company be sure that a current employee isn’t putting sensitive company data at risk? What if the device is lost?

Compliance Shortcomings

Finally, you have to consider how your BYOD implementation will interact with any other compliances or requirements that your business is beholden to. In the past, a shockingly low number of IT leaders and professionals were confident that their BYOD policies met the standards placed by a variety of requirements, including HIPAA and Dodd-Frank.

How Can I Leverage BYOD Securely?

Fortunately, there are a few means of adopting a BYOD approach within your business while mitigating the concerns described above. The simplest way is to simply enforce a use policy, outlining the guidelines that your employees must follow if they wish to use their personal devices for work purposes.

Coleman Technologies can help you to create and enforce these guidelines, as well as optimize your use of your IT in many other ways. To learn more, reach out to our team by calling (604) 513-9428.