Robert Jones & Andrea Ward examine the risks of the BYOD trend
BYOD Bring Your Own Device to work is a concept which has been around for years, but which has recently gained significant ground in the business market, due to the enormous popularity of tablet devices, smart phones and cloud-based services, which have proven their versatility to be beyond that offered by the traditional computer.
For businesses, consumerisation offers many benefits, which include a reduced spend on IT hardware, increased productivity and greater employee engagement. However, these short term gains could lead to significant losses if the extent to which BYOD is utilised is not regulated.
For all of the benefits of BYOD, some serious questions hang over its usefulness in the corporate world. Those questions are not simply limited to who owns the hardware and the content, although they are among the most pertinent. One must also question who is responsible for the safety, security and continued operation of personally owned devices, and then also question the extent to which the corporation should, and is indeed allowed
