BYOD, the key of enterprise mobility

BYOD, the abbreviation of “Bring Your Own Device” in English, is a program which is starting to be implemented by both small and medium businesses worldwide. Companies let their employees use their own devices in their workplaces so that they just own a single personal computer, smartphone or tablet to work with and enjoy in their free time.

35 % employees perform their tasks anywhere

The development of work and communications systems in the cloud, the improvement and cheapening of data networks, the hardware higher performance or not carrying multiple mobile devices simultaneously, are just some of the reasons why currently around 35% employees perform their tasks anywhere.

The near future of BYOD

BYOD continues expanding over worldwide businesses apace, due to mobile device management solutions, including security and privacy, are much more complete and solid.

BYOD shows as a natural trend in response to individual employees’ preferences.

Smartphones usage is an increasing trend among population. A recent study conducted by the Pew Research Center shows that nearly two thirds of Americans own a smartphone and almost half of them said that they “couldn’t live without” it, but the idea of ??going back and forth with two devices, one for personal purposes and the other one for work, is no longer as attractive or popular. In fact, the same survey found that 90% Americans use their personal smartphone for work purposes outside the office. Thus, the BYOD is shown as a natural tendency in response to individual employees’ preferences. There are many specialists who already consider this year 2016 as the “BYOD management year”.

The “Bring Your Own Device Mobility Study” referred to 2015 and carried out ??by RCR Wireless News to over 200 information and communications technology leaders from more than 175 companies is revealing and clear: BYOD has good health and its growth is unstoppable. 85% of total respondents indicated that BYOD had already been deployed in their company and 42% of them stated that these programs are “well established” in it, which is a high percentage compared to a 25% a year ago. Another report, this time undergone by Pro Tech Research concludes that 72% of the companies surveyed were either already allowing BYOD in their respective organizations, or had the intention of allowing it in the near future.

Given all this evidence, how will BYOD evolve since now on? Specialists determine ten key lines about it:

1. BYOD will change its consideration of privilege into requirement.
2. Employee reimbursement of expenses will be reduced.
3. Cloud-based apps and resources will increase in number and quality.
4. Expansion of the Internet of Things integrated in BYOD.
5. Awareness of a unified strategy for BYOD which determines the rules of use, management, monitoring and standardized control will raise.
6. Cloud storage will be consolidated as the centralized solution to manage data, documents, reports, projects, etc., providing greater security to companies in relation to data control.
7. Maintaining security will be more difficult, but the awareness and the development of more powerful and efficient solutions will improve.
8. The line between personal and work purposes will be even more blurred.
9. Employees should take over the above two points.
10. The biometric security measures will lead passwords outdated.

Why deploying a BYOD program?

Deploying a BYOD program in a company allows employees to have at hand, no matter when or where he is, all daily data, projects, documents which, obviously, is much more comfortable and above all practical. At the same time, employees can use his own device for both personal and work purposes without merging or confusing both concepts in any case. This kind of solutions let employees make and receive business calls, while the company assumes costs and without using their own personal phone number. For the company, there are many advantages. Without going any further, BYOD is a considerable cost reduction. On the one hand, the investment in acquiring and maintaining devices disappears. On the other hand, cloud-based telephony solutions offer a wide range of services at very competitive prices. Although its many advantages, there is a huge question about BYOD too. How should security and privacy be managed by companies? 

The big challenge: keep privacy safe

Employees having access to clients and suppliers’ data, information, projects, reports, etc., from their own devices at any time and place, the need to keep all that information safe, often confidential, becomes the top priority. We said before 35 % of employees do their tasks anywhere. However, only large enterprises are working on solutions that ensure data security. In turn, this implies that the vast majority of small and medium businesses deploying BYOD don’t guarantee the security of their daily operating information.

Only 20% SMBs are aware that BYOD involves a higher security risk

This situation is largely the result of inadequate awareness of the risks involved in having access to information regardless of location or timing. A recent study conducted by Kaspersky Lab revealed that only 20 % SMBs are aware that BYOD involves a higher security risk of your activity, but it turns out to up to 52% SMBs when it comes to large enterprises. In both cases, the awareness is not sufficient, as the loss or theft of a device, or a malicious access by third parties could mean a huge loss, not just economic.

Robert Siciliano, security expert in BestCompany.com, highlights that “most IT managers have a very good management of company’s laptops, desktops and mobile devices, but are rapidly losing control when employees bring their new mobile device and connect it to the corporate network.”

Now, due to BYOD introduction, companies must also be concerned about if the app, which an employee has just installed in its smartphone or tablet, for both personal and work purposes, might infect the rest of computers which are connected to the same network.

Nevertheless, not only should be increased company’s security but also the employee’s. Bringing your own device to work and being able to do personal and work purposes could lead you to a loss of privacy? May sharing web links, sending and receiving personal emails, sending photos, etc., from a mixed-use device be an important matter of intrusion by the company?

On that subject, there are already mobile device management (MDM) solutions, which installed on the employees computers, are able to analyze which kind of information they can or cannot have access to. In addition, many States are already in process of legislating laws which prevent companies from accessing to social networks accounts and other services protected with password by the employee.