Hello friend,
Bring your own device (BYOD) programs are reshaping today’s workforce. As an IT leader exploring new workforce models, you may be wondering — can BYOD really help my business gain an edge?
I’m here to tell you, unequivocally, yes.
As an experienced cybersecurity consultant, I’ve developed and implemented BYOD policies at organizations of all sizes. Across industries from finance to high tech, I’ve seen firsthand how empowering employees to utilize their own mobile devices can transform efficiency.
But I also understand you likely have questions and perhaps some skepticism.
- How much cost savings is realistic?
- Can I keep company data secure?
- How do I develop a usage policy appropriate for my business?
This guide aims to explore all aspects of planning and executing a BYOD rollout. My goal is to arm you with a complete understanding so you can make the right decisions for your unique needs.
First, let‘s look at the factors making BYOD a staple of the modern digital workplace. Then we‘ll unpack key considerations as you build a mobile workforce equipped for the future.
The Rise of BYOD
Allowing employees to use personal devices for work first gained popularity at the executive level. Senior leaders often wanted access to email and productivity software on personal smartphones and tablets without waiting for IT to issue company-owned devices.
But over the last decade, BYOD has expanded across organizations. Employees at all levels now frequently merge personal and professional data on smartphones, laptops, tablets and wearables.
Let‘s look at some key statistics revealing the pervasiveness of BYOD in today‘s workplace:
- 82% of companies currently allow personal devices in the workplace
- 93% of companies report increased productivity thanks to BYOD
- 97% of organizations have a BYOD policy or plan to implement one
Driving this rapid adoption is the reality that modern employees simply expect flexibility in when, where, and how they work. With talent demanding robust work from home policies post COVID-19, BYOD delivers mobility and continuity for distributed workforces.
But equally important are the very real and measurable returns for employers embracing BYOD models, from cost savings to productivity gains and everything between.
Quantifiable Benefits of BYOD
While increased agility and work flexibility incentivize employees to participate in BYOD programs, the cost and productivity benefits are what make building a BYOD workforce an easy decision for leadership teams.
Let‘s explore the data:
Hardware and Support Cost Savings
Companies investing in BYOD report significant cost reductions across several categories:
- Hardware Costs: Forrester Research estimates about $350 savings per year per employee when workers supply their own devices. For an organization with 10,000 employees permitted to use personal devices, that equates to $3.5M in annual savings.
- Support Costs: Gartner finds that cutting the amount of company-owned devices by just 10% reduces help desk calls by close to 30%. With fewer assets to manage and apps to support, IT overhead goes down dramatically.
- Telecom Expenses: Cisco‘s BYOD practices saved them $277 million over just two years through cuts in cellular plans, international roaming charges, and fixed telecom services.
| Metric | Savings |
|---|---|
| Hardware acquisition | $350 per employee per year |
| IT support tickets | -30% |
| Telecom costs | $277 million (Cisco over 2 years) |
With such compelling cost data, it makes fiscal sense for companies to enable personal devices for work. And this is all before even considering productivity!
Productivity Increases
The efficiency benefits of BYOD are just as convincing:
- Time Savings: Employees outfitted with familiar devices spend less time troubleshooting hardware or navigating new software. Studies show a typical worker loses over 40 minutes daily due to tech problems. Supporting personal devices eliminates this drain on productivity.
- Talent Retention: Offering device choice and mobility demonstrates a culture that values flexibility and trust. Companies find BYOD critical for attracting and retaining top talent, especially Millennial and Gen Z workers.
- Job Satisfaction: Employees overwhelmingly report higher job satisfaction when permitted to select the tools that make them most productive. More content employees directly correlates with better business outcomes.
- Response Times: Mobility facilitates rapid response times to urgent organizational issues without employees chained to desks. Quicker reactions can prove crucial for time-sensitive scenarios.
With data confirming BYOD as a boost for productivity and the bottom line, constructing a well-planned mobile usage policy makes smart business sense.
Creating a BYOD Policy
As excitement builds for the flexibility and cost savings of BYOD, it’s easy to let eagerness cloud sound judgement.
Effective security and governance is the foundation of any successful BYOD program. That’s why taking time to deliberately shape mobile usage policies brings substantial long term dividends.
I advise clients to carefully assess and document policies in four primary areas when launching BYOD:
Device and Data Considerations
- Which specific devices will your company support? Smartphones, tablets, laptops? iOS, Android, Windows? Identify appropriate form factors along with ideal OSes and models.
- Will you sanction employees accessing all organizational data and apps? Or limit access to non-sensitive systems? Detail specific contours for access.
- What are hardware requirements for BYOD devices? For example, you may require devices must run recent OS versions with full security patches.
- Address how you will restrict company data to containerized applications without bleeding into personal apps photos, messages etc.
Security Protocols
- Mandate passcode protected lock screens on devices. Require fingerprints or complex authentication for additional protection.
- Establish protocols for operating on public networks. For instance, mandate VPN usage when accessing internal resources.
- Set policies for anti-malware apps to spot suspicious network activity or phishing attempts.
- Enable remote data wipe if a device is lost or compromised.
- Require privileged single sign-on access instead of individual credentials for each app.
Reimbursement Rules
- Will your organization subsidize employee-owned devices or related accessories? Outline appropriate categories for reimbursement.
- Note that reimbursement constitutes taxable income. Your policy must account for proper payroll handling.
Compliance Directives
- Address data retention and recovery requirements to facilitate e-discovery requests.
- Detail protocolsemployees must follow if contacted by legal teams regarding company data accessible on personal devices.
While seemingly complex up front, thoughtfully addressing these policy dimensions avoids substantial pain later. Having consulted on BYOD rollouts at global mega corps and early stage startups alike, I’ve learned every organization benefits from upfront planning.
For illustrative examples, examine sample BYOD policies from leading technology companies:
With policy scaffolding erected, attention shifts to maximizing productivity while controlling risk.
Securing a BYOD Workforce
While cost and flexibility attract employers to BYOD, concerns around security and fragmentation persist.
IT departments grapple with safely enabling access across personal devices and networks without exposure. Meanwhile employees struggle to maintain work-life balance with business data intertwined on phones and laptops.
Through consulting with CISOs across industries, I’ve categorized the most prominent risk factors:
Network Security
Accessing company apps and data from public Wi-Fi poses severe risks. Unsecured hotspots facilitate spoofing attacks where hackers masquerade as legitimate access points. Compromising login credentials then provides an avenue to penetrate corporate networks.
Device Security
Locally cached files, authentication cookies, and business data stored on personal devices all provide tasty targets for cybercriminals. Stolen or misplaced equipment grants physical access to sensitive corporate data also.
Phishing Exposure
Employees reviewing business email and messaging on personal devices often fail to exercise the same vigilance towards suspicious links. Social engineering ploys lead to malware infections granting entry to internal resources.
App Sprawl
Supporting a multitude of personal devices and operating systems stretches IT support teams thin. The diversity of equipment makes delivering consistent access and security policies a challenge.
Compliance Difficulties
By storing and transmitting organizational data on personal equipment, companies increase vulnerability around data leakage. Stringent compliance requirements impose heavy financial penalties in the event of such data loss.
While daunting, pragmatic steps toward education, infrastructure, and technology alleviate these risks:
Train Employees
Implementing robust security awareness training ensures personnel understand risks and exercise sound judgement. Education around network connections, suspicious messages, app permissions and local data all help create a human firewall.
Secure Networks
Protecting WiFi access points with sophisticated encryption and multi-factor authentication contains external threats. Inside networks, next-gen firewalls, sandboxes, behavioral analytics and other advanced tools provide visibility and control.
Utilize BYOD Tools
Purpose-built platforms help balance openness and security in BYOD environments through containerization, mobile device management (MDM), role-based access controls and more. Evaluation criteria often includes:
- Data and privacy protections
- Multi-OS support
- Access tiering by user type
- Remote wipe for lost or compromised devices
- Single sign-on (SSO)
- Behavior monitoring
Sample leading BYOD platforms:
| Platform | Key Capabilities |
|---|---|
| VMware Workspace ONE | Advanced device management, app catalog, identity services |
| Citrix Endpoint Management | Unified endpoint management, zero trust security |
| Microsoft Intune | Identity protection, compliance auditing, swipe to wipe |
With prep around policies, infrastructure, and systems, companies avoid common BYOD pitfalls. Attention now shifts to measuring success.
Tracking BYOD Results
Understanding return on investment maintains executive sponsorship for BYOD programs. Quantifying productivity improvements and cost reductions also helps inform future mobile strategy.
I advise clients adopt a standard framework covering key performance indicators (KPIs) in 3 areas:
Financial
- Hardware acquisition costs
- Software licensing costs
- IT help desk support costs
- Telecom services costs
Technology
- Number of BYOD devices enrolled
- Critical security incidents
- Helpdesk ticket volume
Employee
- End user satisfaction
- BYOD service desk satisfaction
- Policy rejection rates
Cisco found strong results across measured categories after launching extensive BYOD efforts:
- $278M telecom cost savings over 2 years
- 320K+ BYOD clients enrolled
- 25% reduction in IT support visits year over year
- 75% employees pleased with BYOD support
Tightly correlating spending, adoption, risk, and satisfaction paints a transparent picture on BYOD success. Broadly sharing results throughout the organization also builds engagement.
With BYOD initiatives demonstrably paying dividends, attention shifts to extraction of maximum value over long horizons.
BYOD Best Practices
Transitioning to an employee-owned device landscape involves much more than writing a policy and hoping for the best.
Disciplined execution across areas like change management, access controls, and cost optimization ensures BYOD success over the long term:
Phase deployments
When launching BYOD, take an iterative vs big bang approach. Roll out capabilities incrementally to help teams adjust and gather feedback. Allow time to correct course based on real world experience before organization wide initiatives.
Train heavily
Extensive education ensures employees understand security responsibilities and proper utilization of remote access tools. Users must grasp fundamentals around networks, phishing, authentication etc to strengthen human firewalls.
**Standardize SUPPORT
Having reliable technical assistance encourages BYOD adoption and ensures user productivity. Standarizing help desk practices, knowledge management and communication channels helps IT support at scale.
Refine policy actively
Treat policies as living documents. As capabilities and threats evolve, regularly revisit rules around appropriate devices, access levels, compliance and reimbursement. Keep polices contemporary.
Optimize spending
Proactively curate lists of approved devices, accessories and software eligible for reimbursement based on necessity and cost. Negotiate with carriers by device and usage profile to minimize cellular expense.
Combined with earlier steps around security and governance, these initiatives sustain maximum BYOD results.
What’s Next for BYOD?
As companies become experienced at supporting bring your own device for core laptops and smartphones, attention expands to emerging form factors.
Forward thinking organizations now take steps to ready infrastructure for new categories like wearables and Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
Supporting devices like smart watches and heads-up displays in corporate networks requires rethinking access, authentication and security conventions. Seemingly innocuous gadgets like fitness bands introduce new risks as network bridging points.
Meanwhile, the overlapping work and personal profiles of BYOD also revolutionize privacy expectations and regulations. As employees conduct more sensitive life events over corporate channels, companies assume accountability for safeguarding highly personal data.
Navigating these transitions in the BYOD landscape requires staying current on:
New Device Types – Expanding the umbrella to encompass innovative form factors in the workplace
Usage Trends – Understanding leading indicators around utilization to predict support needs
Compliance Standards – Tracking legal and regulatory evolutions impacting data safety, privacy and disclosure
Only by proactively monitoring the shifting mobility landscape can tech leaders make informed choices.
Final Thoughts
Dear reader, I hope this guide provided a helpful overview of BYOD from rationale to roll-out and beyond.
As you evaluate creating policies to unleash workforce productivity, take comfort from the proven returns across cost, technology, and employee experience.
With deliberate effort around security, governance, automation and iteration, realize gains confidently.
Now go harness consumerization to transform your business!
All the Best,
[Your Name] CEO & Founder[Your Company]
