Ready or not, here comes BYOD!

CloudCow Contributed Article. Author: Joanna Flis-Zwoinska, CEO of ComZetta.

We are currently witnessing technological advancement, which affects almost every aspect of life. Advanced solutions creep into our daily routines and change our habits. Furthermore, development of the services market and its advantage over the production sector is forcing us to change the ways and places in which we work.

BYOD is the response to these developments. Whether contemporary companies like it or not, this phenomenon is here to stay. You can fight it, but it’s a much better idea to use it effectively. Already 89% of companies consent to connection of private devices into their corporate networks and accept their use in the company…
 

BYOD – Bring Your Own Device is a trend that involves the use of private devices, such as smartphones or tablets, to perform official duties both in and out of the workplace. It is a global phenomenon, which may be beneficial to the company, but may also expose it to loss of control and security of corporate data.

3 basic benefits of BYOD:

• employee productivity increased by the use of task, not time work management. This means they can work from anywhere they want, using any device,
• increased job satisfaction – tasks do not have to be performed at the office or within a strict timeframe,
• real financial benefits – cost of equipment is transferred to the employees.

With the use of appropriate solutions, BYOD can also ensure effective control over employees and provide support for IT departments.

However, politics of mobility and openness introduced by BYOD may also constitute a threat to companies, who are not yet ready for such solutions. If the company does not prepare itself and effectively inform employees about the principles of this way of working, the connections made outside the corporate network may expose it to leaks or total loss of important data.

In order to effectively prepare the company for BYOD, we must adhere to the following guidelines:

1. Prepare privacy policy strictly regulating the use of private devices and their introduction to the corporate network.
2. Provide training, continuously monitor and inform employees of changes and possible hazards.
3. To make sure that the employees’ devices are not the weakest link in the system, ask for their proper configuration and provide support in this regard.
4. Sensitive data should be doubly secured or simply not shared within the BYOD framework.
5. Assign appropriate access areas to corporate resources. Verify who should have access to what, as part of the implementation of which specific tasks.

If a company decides to introduce BYOD, it should make sure that the delivered solutions do not have any loopholes, since there are more and more of them on the market. The ideal solution may be, for example, to transfer all resources or the entire PC including the operating system and applications, to the cloud. The cloud computer (http://comzetta.com) provides a complete working environment accessible to the employee at any time and place.

When introducing BYOD, the company must remember that it, not the employee, is responsible for efficiency of the solutions and security of data. If the company is not ready for BYOD just yet, it should familiarize itself with the subject as soon as possible, because the phenomenon is becoming more and more common and postponing the decision until later increases the risk of losing valuable data.

##

About the Author

Joanna Flis-Zwoinska – CEO of ComZetta (http://www.comzetta.com) – company offering a cloud computer service based on cloud computing technology and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). ComZetta enables flexible operation from any location, using any device and allows you to securely connect to corporate resources.