The consumerisation of smartphones and tablets has sparked a radical change in employee expectations of enterprise IT. As a result, businesses have made it a priority to find the best way to deal with the influx of consumer devices within the workplace. For example, a recent report from Ovum revealed that the number of businesses with a formal bring your own device (BYOD) policy rose from 57 per cent in 2013, to 69 per cent in 2014, indicating that, the majority of businesses are taking action to support this trend.
However, despite this, the same report showed that of those organisations with an existing BYOD policy in place more than a quarter (27%) of employees continue to access unsanctioned corporate data on their devices. It is no wonder there has been a business backlash against the security risks associated with BYOD.
Yet to entirely reject BYOD would lead businesses to completely miss out on its notable benefits. Allowing employees to use their own devices has been shown to improve job satisfaction and employee retention. In addition, the cost reduction benefits are too appealing to ignore. Alternative methods such as COPE (corporate owned, personally enabled) allow organisations to retain ownership of the devices, yet there is still no guarantee that employees will refrain from accessing data from their own devices.
Employees now want to access apps like personal messaging, social networks and work activities on their own devices. Rather than a strategy that businesses choose to adopt or reject, BYOD should therefore be seen primarily as a behaviour that is driven by employees. Businesses should accept BYOD as a fact of life and invest in looking at ways to support it securely.
One of the primary issues with many current BYOD policies is that for the most part, they do not fully address the needs of employees. As Ovum’s report has shown, fewer than 20 per cent of those that use their smartphone at work say they are able to access everything they need, while over quarter say they do not have access to anything. This indicates a massive underestimation in the level of services that employees now expect to have on their devices. This also has an impact on productivity, as employees are unable to access the tools they need to do their jobs properly. Businesses must recognise that email and simple communications tools are no longer enough; BYOD means new apps and devices are being used across all areas of the organisation and must be supported if a successful mobility policy is to be achieved.
For many employees, the lines between work and personal are increasingly blurred. In the long term, businesses may recognise the need for mechanisms to better manage the extent to which work impinges on the personal lives of employees. With the popularity of flexible working policies, employers should expect to see an increase in demand for control services that support this, such as workspace solutions that restrict access to certain applications depending on time, day or device used, as well as a rise in consultancy to guide the process of purchase and implementation.
As employees expect to use these devices for personal use, it is important to factor in the security risks that come from vulnerabilities in personal applications. For example, a study by IBM has shown that employees risk security breaches by using dating apps with vulnerabilities on their work phones. However this does not mean that security issues cannot be managed. For example, by developing the ability to provision software remotely, partition and protect corporate applications and separate them from personal data, companies can protect themselves from loss of theft.
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The momentum of BYOD means that IT departments must adapt if they are to stay relevant. At the very least businesses must be able to accommodate the main smartphone and tablet operating systems in order to give employees the tools they need. However, this will not be effective if employees cannot access data as and when they need it.
Despite the growing popularity of mobile devices, employees in most office based industries still prefer to use desktop and laptops for primary work activities. Tablets and smartphones are used as complementary devices for the commute, the wait at the airport or catching up on email in moments of downtime. An employee workspace should now be considered as a virtual space that can be accessed anytime, anywhere and from a variety of devices. In light of this, businesses should ensure that any BYOD strategy is part of a blended workspace strategy, enabling seamless access to the tools and resources appropriate to the end user’s job. For example, using a secure cloud-based delivery of virtual desktops, images, application and storage could act as a basis for smooth sharing and synchronisation of data across devices and throughout the organisation.
Although it can be tempting to reject BYOD as something that is too complex to implement and that offers too many security risks, businesses can equip themselves with right level of support for employee devices, either in-house or through an IT services provider. Despite the scepticism about its viability, the reality is that BYOD is here to stay, and businesses should do what they can to embrace it.
