Challenges In The Byod Culture

By Author: Yancy Marry
Total Articles: 185
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BYOD or Bring Your Own Device is a practice that most modern enterprises are adopting for it’s more flexible and cheaper advantages. However, if recent reports of mobile market analysts are to be believed, BYOD will not show positive results in all types of organizations. Earlier it was believed that allowing a company’s workforce to use their personal desktop and mobile devices like laptops, smartphones, and tablets will make them more engaged towards work which will in turn contribute towards business mobility. However, the BYOD culture has its potential challenges too. Listed below are some such disadvantages:

1. Workforce does not want to pay up – The reason why employers find the BYOD culture very attractive is because most times the workforce has to pay for the maintenance and the tools required for their personal devices. Most enterprise managements, especially the small sized ones do not pay cash to their employees involved in the BOD culture. The result is that a larger part of the BYOD workforce drop out of work since they have to subsidize employer profits.

2. Security issues – The biggest problem ...
... that is marring the popularity of the BYOD culture is the security risks involved. Since a customer’s device is allowed to access corporate networks, several security problems occur if the management is not able to manage the situation correctly. The IT department of an organization often fails to impose strict guidelines for the staff that access sensitive commercial data from their personal devices. Even if security measures are adopted, it is upon the staff to patch and encrypt their devices and run an updated antivirus version, which they often ignore. This leads to loss of information, both personal and official. A recently concluded survey shows that only 1 out of 10 employees are aware of the security risks involved in the BYOD culture and take proper steps to ensure that they are avoided.

3. The licensing problems – An organization which has adopted the BYOD culture must invest a lot of time and money on licensing. It is upon the IT department of the enterprise to check that licenses of the BYOD kits are in place; this is neither a time effective nor a cost effective option. One of the primary complications arising in the case of licensing the BYOD equipment is the installation of software that is completely under the control of an enterprise. This leads to the introduction of further legal issues. For instance, under the licenses used for the BYOD equipment, it is not stated clearly whether downloading of content or images for personal use from a device used for official purposes is illegal.

4. Possibility of reduced productivity – In all likelihood, adoption of the BYOD culture may lead to less productivity and thus reduced mobility. This is because of the fact that if employees are allowed to use their personal devices, they end up playing games, watching a video, or accessing social network sites more frequently. Research has shown that employees are more likely to engage in fun than in work if they bring a personal device in the workplace. This will have a negative impact upon the enterprise’s long term productivity levels and will thus cause reduced mobility.

The above factors are proof of the fact that BYOD still has a long way to go before gaining mass acceptance.

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