Jan 24, 2015

More employees are starting to demand bring-your-own-device adoption across their organizations to improve operations and provide more working options. While numerous businesses have realized what advantages this could bring, decision-makers also understand the potential risks they would be taking by implementing the trend. Due to this fear, some companies have chosen to ban BYOD or to incorporate a heavily regulated system, making it difficult to effectively use services like online file sharing.

For many organizations, keeping data safe has become a top priority as breaches remain a regular threat. However, efforts to remain totally secure could be holding businesses back from their mobile initiatives and prevent them from reaping the associated benefits. According to Alan Hartwell, Oracle EMEA VP of security and identity solutions, 44 percent of enterprises have not taken on BYOD due to their data protection concerns. This lack of adoption could put these companies far behind their competitors and risk potential staff leaving for a more updated employer. BYOD and mobile file sharing promotes faster information access, ensuring that workers always have the right data on hand. Without these systems, businesses will miss out on this advantage.

“So therefore they lock themselves off from all productivity gain, and they make themselves look almost prehistoric to some of their employees,” Hartwell said, according to Computing. “There’s almost a need for a whole industry to solve these problems. It’s been very rapid adoption, and we need to be careful that we don’t actually start to slow down.”

Handling BYOD with any business size
While larger organizations may have more resources to devote to their mobilization, small businesses can still reap considerable benefits by adopting BYOD. Lifehacker contributor Angus Kidman suggested that companies provide extensive training, begin from the basics and make apps the priority over devices. By doing this, management will significantly reduce the amount of risks and ensure that users understand how to effectively leverage their hardware in the workplace. Programs like secure file sharing should be considered to enable employees to easily transfer files and collaborate without compromising sensitive data. With protective measures like remote wipe capabilities and user authentication, IT can ensure that no unapproved personnel view the documents, deterring the chance for stolen files.

“As a business manager, your focus should be on ensuring that the essential tools you use are available on as many platforms as possible,” Kidman wrote. “It doesn’t matter what phone (or tablet) people are using. What matters is that they can access relevant resources (whether that’s a sales tracking tool, your accounting system or a task list to identify the next thing to work on).”