Coleman Technologies Blog

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.

But first, what does a Bring Your Own Device policy entail, and why is it so popular and effective for businesses?

BYOD is More Than Just an Employee Convenience

BYOD, when implemented properly, can give your employees the ability to use their personal devices for work purposes, opening up a whole range of benefits for both the employer and the employee. For the employee, they get to use a device they are familiar with, allowing them to be more productive. For the employer, they save capital by not having to provide employees with technology.

These benefits, however, are only effective when the devices are properly managed and secured. Let’s discuss some ways you can keep BYOD from becoming a liability for your company.

Issues Related to BYOD Strategy

Plan Ahead

Most business decisions cannot be made haphazardly, especially when it comes to technology implementation. You’ll want to take your time and consider the various elements involved with any change to your technology strategy. For example, you will want to consider that your business is working with data, and that data should not be accessed by anyone without the proper permissions; especially on a device that you don’t have much control over.

This is where classification comes in. Assign levels of classification to dictate who can access which data and on which devices. A good rule to follow is that you should work from the principle of least privilege. Provide the least amount of access possible for your staff to do their jobs, and nothing more until it becomes evident that they need further access. The fewer people who can access said data, the more secure it will be.

Be Prepared for Problems

The best way to prevent issues from escalating is to expect them to happen and be ready to address them. You might run into issues with your expectations for the policy differing from your team’s, which could lead to friction between management and your workforce. As such, you need to be ready to respond to situations where your authority and their privacy might clash.

We recommend that you always be transparent with your team about security and make sure their privacy is a priority whenever possible. We’ll cover this topic in greater detail in a moment, but for now, try to make security as easy as possible by providing them with easy-to-use tools like password managers and antivirus to reduce friction whenever possible.

Weigh Privacy and Security Appropriately

Ultimately, the trickiest part about BYOD is managing the balance between security and privacy in a way where your team feels respected and in control of their own technology, not the other way around. Your BYOD policy should maintain privacy without sacrificing security, something that a mobile device management tool can make much easier to manage. This will help to reduce friction whenever possible.

Let Coleman Technologies Help

If you’re ready to implement BYOD, we can help make the process easier. To learn more, call us at (604) 513-9428 today.

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.

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.

If you are currently considering implementing an MDM solution, here are a few best practices to keep in mind as you make your selection:

Comprehensive Compatibility

Some people are fans of Android, while others will pick iOS whenever they have a choice. To successfully implement MDM, both platforms need to be supported. You should also be sure that your solution can differentiate between an employee-owned device and one that is property of your business and be able to adjust its policies accordingly.

Device Tracking and Management

On the off chance you have to let an employee go, you don’t want your BYOD strategy to leave you vulnerable to retribution. A good MDM solution will allow you to review what a device has access to, and to remotely revoke that access as necessary. As a bonus, these features make general device troubleshooting much simpler as well.

Security in Your Control

While your business’ security is obviously a priority for you, your team probably won’t think about it as seriously as you will… despite it largely being their responsibility. They might just assume that the chances of something happening are so low, they can cut a corner or two. Instead of convincing them that they’re mistaken, an MDM solution allows you to set the acceptable benchmarks for your security. This enables minimum password requirements, encryption, remote wiping capabilities, and other utilities.

Comprehensive Backup

If you’re allowing BYOD in your business, there’s a good chance that some of your business’ data is spread out amongst several employee devices. Should something happen to that device, you could easily lose this data. Protecting this data is as simple as backing it up to the cloud.

For more information about mobile device management, or any of our other IT services and support options, give Coleman Technologies a call at (604) 513-9428.