Byod (bring Your Own Device): The Pros And The Cons

By Author: Yancy Marry
Total Articles: 184
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BYOD or Bring Your Own Device is a business policy adopted by enterprises that allows the workforce to use their personal mobile devices at the workplace. BYOD is also known as BYOB (Bring Your Own Behavior) and BYOT (Bring Your Own Technology) in several enterprises in order to incorporate a broader phenomenon, covering both the software and the hardware devices used within the workplace. An enterprise that follows the BYOD concept gives its employees the privilege to access the company’s various resources like file servers, databases, personal applications, and emails.

BYOD is perhaps the most accepted phenomenon in an enterprise in the recent past. A survey has shown that more than 90 percent employees, irrespective of the size of their enterprises, use personal technology at work. 71 percent among them use advanced versions of mobile applications on their devices that was earlier not made available by the workplace. Let us take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of the BYOD policy:

Pros
1. Adoption of this new concept has increased productivity of work, made working more convenient for employees, ...
... and thus has played a major role in boosting the morale of an employee.

2. With employees delivering good quality work, the employer appears more attractive and flexible to prospective customers.

3. BYOD is one of the chief ways to ensure cost cutting by the enterprise. Since employees are equipped with their own mobile devices, the employer does not have to invest in high priced mobile devices which would otherwise have to be purchased. The enterprise also saves on money that is spent on mobile device upgradation & maintenance. As employees use personal devices, they are most likely to take better care of them as opposed to the case when devices would have been the property of the enterprise.

4. An employee is given the liberty to control the features of the mobile devices if an enterprise follows the BYOD policy. In this way, the employee is comfortable with the technology being used at the workplace and thus can give better productivity rate of work.

Cons
1. Protection of a mobile device is an important issue with BYOD. Enterprises must maintain protocols & apps on remote wiping of devices and every employee must lock their devices with a password to protect all confidential data. Tracking & controlling of private network access is also important. All this is achieved through wireless security like over the air encryption, user authentication, and network authentication.

2. While on the one side an enterprise can reduce costs in purchasing mobile devices & apps, on the other it has to invest heavily on security measures to be adopted for the proper functioning of the devices. The monthly payment for mobile device services increases substantially. All repairs for damaged & broken devices at work are the responsibilities of the enterprise.

3. Troubleshooting is a major problem in a BYOD environment. Since the employees bring multiple technologies in the workplace, the number of technological errors arising from the devices also rises. The IT department of the enterprise has to be well skilled & professionally qualified to solve troubleshooting issues. They can however be avoided by testing every device & app before allowing use.

Bring Your Own Device has come across as a boon for not only the employees but also the employers in an enterprise. The BYOD concept has gained a strong foothold and is gradually becoming compulsory for every type of enterprise.

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