In BYOD (Bring your own device) trend is increasingly becoming a bigger reality for most enterprises. While there have been many major deployments of mobility solutions, the top management and the CIOs are often in a dilemma regarding this trend. There is no sign of reversal of this trend, given the fast influx of smartphones in the enterprises. So with the influx of mobile devices should CIOs and IT managers look at it as a challenge or opportunity for growth?
BYOD fundamentally means employees bringing their own devices to accomplish work for their employers. With the consumerisation of IT, almost everyone has access to cutting-edge technologies and gadgets. However, smaller organisations and start-ups who are constrained on the spending, tend to avoid huge capital investments in servers and networks. In such scenarios, BYOD becomes a natural strategy. CIOs and IT managers need to look at both sides of the coin before rolling out the policy.
There are several benefits to an initiative like BYOD, which the IT manager should take into account. The most obvious one is that the employee buys the device resulting in the reduction in cost to the company, says Bala Variyam, Vice President, Collabera Labs.
Employees are willing to spend their own money because they fundamentally love the technology and want to reap the benefits these devices bring. Today's devices let the employees be connected to colleagues but also to their friends and family social circles. This indirectly brings in the softer benefits such as employee satisfaction and productivity, says Variyam and adds since the employees have spent their own money to buy the devices, they will use them and get the work done in a way they want. Productivity tends to go up whenever there is a friendly BYOD policy in place. Allowing employees to use their own devices gives them a sense of freedom. This in turn increases employee satisfaction and reflects on the company as being employee friendly.
However, not many IT managers are of the same views. It is true BYOD has become a jargon, but for businesses, simply allowing access to personal devices isn't the answer. It's a question of enabling relevant, secure access across the entire network, while protecting corporate assets and delivering an optimal user experience, says Dharmaraj Ramakrishnan, Head, Core Banking, ING Vysya bank Ltd.
U Arun Kumar Sheth, Head, Software Development, GATI Ltd feels BYOD creates a heterogeneous environment and the integration process will challenge the internal security system. Sheth argues that data protection becomes the need of the hour and hence BYOD initiative should be restricted to accessing emails only.
BYOD has brought increased challenges for IT managers essentially on two frontsincreased risks of exposing company data and operational hassles of managing different types of devices, remarks Upasna Saluja, Operational Resilience Manager Product & infrastructure Risk Management, Thomson Reuters.
Variyam remarks saying emails and calendaring tools have matured and their security standards easily adapt to managing any device. Therefore, BYOD will not typically bring in challenges in those areas. However, other enterprise data and applications such as HR and finance need to be looked at carefully to ensure that implementing BYOD will not cause any security violations. Having pre-defined architecture and design patterns for data access, data storage and security of enterprise applications is an essential pre-requisite for implementing BYOD policy, concludes Variyam.
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