Why You Should Establish a BYOD Policy for Your Business

Progress.

If you’re in the business world, you know that how much you make—and how quickly you make it—is often the barometer for success. That doesn’t mean it’s the only way to measure success, but it definitely plays a part. There are two factors that have the ability to impede that progress: complacency with the method used to achieve your goals and resistance to investing back into your company. And, oftentimes, the more these factors are present, the more outdated your technology becomes.

While you may very well be perfectly content with printing receipts on a dot matrix printer and using a point of sale (POS) system that only works on Windows 98 (if it’s not broke why fix it, right?), your employees, most likely, are not. Staying current with technology trends can be vital to both remaining relevant in your industry and keeping your employees happy.

Why does updating your system make sense?

• Faster hardware means a decrease in processing time
• Easier-to-use systems will increase employee efficiency
• Newer equipment will be easier to maintain and provide a lower cost of ownership
• Modern software will be easier to secure
• Reduced time and money needed to train new employees

It’s not hard to understand why some employers might be prone to resisting change. I have done lifecycle management for the last four years. What seems likes a straightforward task, can become a time consuming nightmare if you are not consistently monitoring the status of every time employees leave, workforce is expanded, equipment breaks, or equipment becomes incompatible with operations. Trying to predict these events and plan a budget around it can be a headache as well.

This is why some just decide to save the headache and man hours, put their heads down, and keep moving forward. With a little help though, a solution doesn’t have to be difficult.

BYOD can make sense…if done right

What do you do when an employee owned device…

• … is lost or stolen?
• … becomes subject to malware?
• … provides an unsecured backdoor into your network?
• … starts accessing parts of your network that it shouldn’t?

These are legitimate concerns that need to be considered when introducing employee owned devices to your network. A successfully designed BYOD program can…

• … lock a lost or stolen device down
• … keep devices updated with the latest anti-virus protection
• … provide proper encryption of data, and secure device vulnerabilities
• … segregate the business and personal data on a device, and control access levels

Look over the following three questions, and share your answers with your IT partner. Even if the answer is "I don't know," establishing your current security posture will be key to securing your infrastructure.

• How many devices are connected to your network at any given time?
• Are they all devices that are supposed to be connected to your network?
• Are they secured, encrypted and assigned appropriate access level?

Think of the devices as your business’s children. Now, imagine explaining to your spouse that you aren’t sure how many kids you have, didn’t realize that you’d been letting a neighbor’s kid sleep in your house for a week, and you haven’t taken the kids to see a doctor in the last eight years.

Whether you have already put a BYOD policy in place, or are interested in transitioning, you need to know the status of your digital children.