BYOD vs CYOD - Which Is Right For Your Business?
In our previous article BYOD vs CYOD - What’s the Difference, we covered the main differences between Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and Choose Your Own Device (CYOD) as well as highlighting the pros and cons.
BYOD already has a large following, with many employees already using personal devices to work from home or while they are on the go and has established itself as a potent mobile working policy, with numerous benefits along with significant cost savings to boot. However, for many companies BYOD poses a big question - how do we balance our employee mobility with data security? These questions have given rise CYOD mobile strategies.
All that begs the question, which solution is right for your business - devices chosen by employees or those provided by companies?
Which is the Best Fit for your Business?
As mentioned in the previous article, both models have their pros and cons and the model which is best for you, will most likely be determined by your business needs.
If, for example, your regularly store highly sensitive information which your employees regularly access via their mobile devices, then a CYOD solution is a must for you as you can pre-configure security counter measures whilst simultaneously implementing a data protection policy which employees must follow. Data protection policies are notoriously difficult to enforce in BYOD solutions, as companies do not have the right to dedicate how, when and where employees use their personal devices, and CYOD removes this barrier to data security. Example industries where CYOD solutions are a must when implementing a mobile working strategy would include among others; Financial, Legal, Medical and any other sector where private information is stored and accessed regularly.
However, if your employees do not handle or require access to your operations critical sensitive information, then implementing a BYOD solution could well be the way forward. However, a word caution here, this could end up being more hassle than it is worth, as almost every company stores sensitive data of some sort and allowing private devices to connect to company networks still has the disadvantage of increasing the potential risk of mobile malware spreading on company networks.
Another scenario where BYOD could well be the best solution for you, is if your company fits into the SOHO category, where you only have a handful of devices to manage. However, if your company fits into any other business size category (SMB, SME and Larger Enterprise), then implementing a BYOD solution can potentially have many pitfalls as IT admins lose control over devices connecting to company networks as well as having to manage a potentially unmanageable number of different platforms, which will invariably mean that software deployments and updates relating to the mobile devices will be limited in frequency and the availability of technical support will be somewhat restricted if it available at all.
Summary
Over the past few years, BYOD has understandably risen in popularity. With the potential to save big on costs whilst simultaneously raising productivity and promoting employee mobility and freedom.
However, as with most new technologies, as adoption has increased, chinks in it’s armour have been exposed - namely security, data protection and support issues. Therefore, despite CYOD being the more expensive option short-term, in the long-run choosing your own device could potentially prove much more cost effective.
Regardless of which strategy you choose to implement, having an enterprise mobility strategy is an essential to the success of any modern business, particularly as mobile VoIP and mobile unified communications become the norm in the workplace. Therefore, choosing the right mobile collaboration solutions vendor is essential. Thankfully, by choosing a vendor such as pascom, overcoming many of the potential risks of mobile strategies is no longer such an issue.
For example pascom’s mobile apps provide not only a user friendly interface for accessing communication tools, but thanks to user and password management, an additional security layer on the mobile device. Moreover, more recent versions of pascom’s mobile app for Android and iOS also incorporate QR code provisioning and can be automatically unpaired by the phone system administrator should a mobile device be lost or stolen.
Come back next week when we take a look at some tips for implementing a successful BYOD / CYOD solution and how to protect your data.
If you would like more information regarding how our pascom VoIP Software PBX can help you implement a telecommuting / remote working strategy, then get in touch with us either via our website or give us a call on + 49 991 29691 200.