The Pros And Cons Of The BYOD Debate

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Feb 262013
 

The continuing growth of the digital age has forever changed the ways of conducting business, with the most current evolution focusing on the BYOD – bring your own device – trend. Traditionally, businesses equipped their offices with their own network of computers, however, since word of BYOD and its benefits has spread, businesses are beginning to reevaluate this model. Recently, Juniper Research released a study predicting that the current 150 million employee-owned devices on the job are expected to more than double by 2014.

image thumb37 The Pros And Cons Of The BYOD Debate

Companies, such as Intel, Kraft, IBM, and Whirlpool, that were quick to implement BYOD policies, have already begun to reap the benefits. These companies are witnessing a reduction in costs and an increase in their competitive advantage. While benefits are not witnessed immediately, the savings over time can be expected to increase steadily if the polices are implemented correctly. For example, the company will not be financially responsible for to purchase or maintain new machines, that cost is passed on to the employee. In addition, employees will tend to become more acquainted with the intricacies of their devices, and therefore need less assistance from the IT department for simple fixes. For firms that implement BYOD and still use office computers as well, it will reduce the wear on the office systems and increase their life, so long as they don’t become obsolete.

Aside from strictly financial benefits, BYOD will also help individual employees. BYOD is expected to increase job-related happiness, simply because people just prefer to use one device rather than splitting up their work between multiple devices. Furthermore, it is easier and less frustrating for the user to learn and work one device rather than two. Employees using their own devices are also likely to have increased productivity as they will have the freedom to work at their most productive times of the day, and even on the go.

image thumb38 The Pros And Cons Of The BYOD DebateWhile BYOD appears like a great choice because it provides increased employee productivity and decreased costs, the downsides of it must also be thoroughly considered before devising an implementation strategy. The most glaring downside of this is the huge threat it poses to the firm’s security. With employees all using private devices with different configurations, accessing sensitive company information on a corporate network, this could be a potential nightmare for IT security personnel. Another potential issue would be employees, who no longer work with a company, can continue to access information on their respective devices, or contain information necessary for an audit on their personal computers.

These security risks can be countered by establishing the proper BYOD protocol. First and foremost, companies that wish to make the switch to BYOD must work with their Legal and Human Resource departments to build policies for BYOD. If there are not policies in place from the beginning (such as sites deemed trustworthy for app download), security will be compromised. IT can also use network management tools to block untrusted apps, control access levels and remotely erase data from compromised devices. However, firms must be careful not to apply excessive controls or it may undermine the usefulness of BYOD and its contribution to employee satisfaction.

Employers putting BYOD into action must also educate employees on the new system. It is crucial to keep all employees informed of the proper protocol and how to use their devices within the corporate network. Employees should be instructed to password protect all devices and try to operate on them without actually running the programs or storing documents and data on the physical device. This technology should be used especially whenever sensitive corporate information needs to be accessed, as it is crucial never to store this type of information locally. Data should also be encapsulated and backed up frequently; if devices are stolen or compromised in any way they must also be able to be wiped remotely.

BYOD can certainly be exciting and beneficial to businesses, but in order to pull it off successfully all people involved must be informed from the start!

About the Author

This blog post was written by Jason who works at a cyber security training company named Phoenix TS.


The Pros And Cons Of The BYOD Debate

Justin Germino

Owner at DragonBlogger.com
Working in the IT Industry for over 13 years and specializing in web based technologies. Dragon Blogger has unique insights and opinions to how the internet and web technology works. An Avid movie fan, video game fan and fan of trying anything and everything new.
The Pros And Cons Of The BYOD Debate

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The Pros And Cons Of The BYOD Debate
  • http://www.webmaisterpro.com/ Kaloyan Banev

    Certainly we will hear more and more about BYOD and probably this will become one of the hottest trends, but for now I doubt that many people are prepared.

    • http://www.dragonblogger.com Justin Germino

      So many would prefer to use their personal devices to do work on, rather than have to carry 2 devices (1 corporate and 1 personal) but security is always the key for the organization and the biggest obstacle that needs to be addressed.

  • http://www.wonderoftech.com Carolyn Nicander Mohr

    Great article balancing the pros and cons of BYOD. Corporate security is a big issue with BYOD and I imagine some day in the not too distant future we will hear about a major security breach caused by BYOD.

    Another issue with BYOD is data usage. When employees are on a corporate data plan they don’t pay too much attention to whether they’re using Wi-Fi or cellular data to connect to the Internet. If they don’t bother to connect to Wi-Fi at home and at the office they may be very surprised at their first BYOD cell phone bill.

    • http://www.dragonblogger.com Justin Germino

      You make a good point about data plan usage as well, but in truth I see almost all cell providers being 100% unlimited in the near future for a basic flat rate, I don’t see the tier pricing per 2GB being a long term payment method not when more content becomes HD, more streaming occurs and 4G / LTE is needed for that streaming. As far as security breach, they happen all the time with corporate devices being stolen, laptops being left in cafe’s…etc. Will it really be so much more? I mean if someone stores their life in their personal cell phone, banks, credit card info, payment methods via NFC….etc. There is already more sensitive data on those personal devices than most people would carry for a corporation unless you handled sensitive company data and used it on your phone.

      I expect a more diverse set of applications that isolate portions of Android, iOS, Blackberry 10 or Windows 8. These “apps within an app” are basically a bubble that requires you to authenticate to get into it, uses device fingerprinting plus stronger authentication factors to allow VPN connection to corporate Exchange or networks. Kind of like a secured section of your mobile phone, that is only for company data and gets stored, FIPS compliantly encrypted and securely accessed. Plus would have the ability to destruct/destroy the data if a set number of password attempts failed.

      • http://www.wonderoftech.com Carolyn Nicander Mohr

        Justin, I hope you are right about unlimited data making a return to personal cell phone plans. Unfortunately the major carriers are headed in the other direction, with Verizon now requiring its customers to pay full price for a new smartphone if they want to grandfather their unlimited data plans. You’re absolutely correct about the need for more data increasing, let’s just hope the carriers respond in a way that satisfies their customers.

        • http://www.dragonblogger.com Justin Germino

          If Super Wi-Fi can come to fruition and not be blocked by the Telecom’s it will force all telecom’s to come down, also I do predict that with Netflix, and all satellite services now offering live TV streaming to mobile that there will be an uprising. People change corporate policy, all it takes is enough to rise up and jump ship to the competitor that offers it.

          But yeah, there will always be the pinch for bandwidth/charges for the near future.

        • http://www.wonderoftech.com Carolyn Nicander Mohr

          That would be great and I very much hope your predictions come true. My fears go in the other direction, I’m concerned that unlimited Internet at home will be phased out. Already some Internet providers overseas are charging customers based on the amount of data used. I really hope that doesn’t arrive on US shores.

        • http://www.dragonblogger.com Justin Germino

          I agree, it would only make people leverage phone calls more using Skype or over Wi-Fi VOIP apps and reduce calls while on the cellular network. This is where Super Wi-Fi will solve the problem too.

  • http://avgjoegeek.net/ avgjoegeek

    No way would I run a BYOD due to security issues that arise with that. I know most major companies will supply (higher ups) their employees with Blackberry or now iPhones. These typically have better overall security vs. Android phones. With the new Blackberry devices now being released which allow a “dual” profile? Maybe I can see this policy being loosened up in the future.

    • http://www.dragonblogger.com Justin Germino

      Do you think it odd how a micro-satellite was just launched with a Google Nexus / Android as part of it’s brain? Android security for micro satellites?