Is BYOD right or wrong for your business?

Source: HP.com

Title: Is BYOD right or wrong for your business?

As business becomes more mobile, tablets and smartphones are taking an active role in the technology shift. BYOD (bring your own device) , where employees use their personal devices to complete work tasks, is becoming common practice—sometimes sanctioned and sometimes under-the-radar. It’s inevitable that people will want to consolidate devices and make work as easy as possible, but can a tablet or smartphone really be used as your primary computing tool?

BYOD: right or risky?

For workers who need to be on-the-go, smartphones and tablets can truly increase your overall efficiency. Employee productivity increases, and so do budgets. But before you can reap these benefits, there are some risks and considerations to recognize, especially when employees are using their own smartphones and tablets, instead of ones provided by your IT team:

• Device variety: There’s a large menu of operating systems and hardware options, which makes it difficult for IT to focus on securing a single platform.

• Outdated firmware: Many consumers don’t generally keep current on their firmware, which disables basic operation and other functions of the device.


• Network authentication: Lost or upgraded personal devices still carry potentially sensitive company information that you won’t want floating around.


• Mobility issues: Tablets and smartphones are susceptible to theft or loss, and can get expensive to replace.


• Data plan misuse: When adding tablets into budgets, data plan costs are often forgotten. Most users will go over their plan, and generally it’s from personal use (e.g., streaming movies or browsing the internet).

How to mitigate these risks?

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