As technology goes from trend to trend and reaches new frontiers, so too does your business need to grow, adapt and embrace the advantages that technology has to offer without burning your fingers with a potential security risk.
Why take the risk? By having your employees bring their own devices, the company does not need to outlay the capital; an iPhone 5 retails at about R7 500. You can take advantage of the technology sooner. Employees will take better care of their own devices than a company-owned device. Employees can now decide what features they would require to fulfil their needs in the workplace. This can lead to higher morale in the office and increased productivity.
"I am always contactable via e-mail and necessary IM applications to the office and clients. With the necessary apps, I can connect remotely to our clients and assist them with any technical queries," says Jason Murphy, Head of Technical, CBX Tech CPT.
"This decreases my turnaround time attending to and resolving client requests, thus increasing my productivity.
"While in meetings, minutes and necessary notes are captured via my tablet. Upon completion, minutes are e-mailed immediately. During these meetings, clients request information, with the access of my SkyDrive or DropIT Box, I can access files and notes for the client with information on hand immediately," says Murphy.
"The main drive against BYOD is security of company information, as these devices are not in complete control of the company. Security professionals have labelled this as 'bring your own disaster'. Security measures that could be taken include password protection on devices, encrypting device data and prohibiting certain apps from being installed. Other policies could include limiting e-mail usage as well as IT audits to ensure employees comply with the workplace's BYOD security policy," says Martin Botha, Head of Technical, CBX Tech JHB.
"For me, in an everyday working environment, choosing a smartphone is all about reliability, comfort and familiarity.
"I suppose I don't even need to mention why a phone must be reliable, so I will start off with the second point that matters to me and that is that a phone must have a big enough screen to comfortably enable me to read and send e-mails but also small enough to put away in my pocket and not annoy me when I work in server rooms, etc. I therefore also need a phone that can stand a bit of punishment when it drops accidentally or something similar. It must be user-friendly and have good processing power to comfortably run whichever task is needed from it. The phone must be totally customisable to my preferences and needs, and therefore I prefer Android above all other operating systems. I can totally customise it to my liking, thus making the phone comfortable to work with in any situation I may encounter in my field of work.
"Thirdly, familiarity plays a big role as well. I have been brand-loyal most of my 'smartphone life' and therefore know the menus and set-up of the phone brand I use. There are few things as annoying as looking for a specific application when you urgently need it on a phone and you cannot find it, because different manufacturers store apps in different folders or they use different methods of completing simple tasks you use everyday," Botha concludes.
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