Understanding Bring Your Own Device

In a world where seemingly everyone has a device that they bring everywhere, how can you make this trend work for your business while keeping your IT infrastructure from being infiltrated by malicious entities? By instituting a conscientious and thorough Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) strategy, your company can make your staff’s devices work for your company.

BlackCSI understands the complexities this inserts onto your IT systems. Our wealth of experience and knowledge can bring together a solution to ensure your productivity stays on track.

In order to begin to design a BYOD policy that works for your company, you will have to determine the necessary elements you are trying to protect, the access employees have to those elements, and how to react when you need to enact the protocols of that policy. The first consideration you should have is whether or not the additional mobility would be of any benefit for your organization. The ability to reach beyond your network and still access all the work-related material can be an indispensable factor for the modern employee. People are busier than ever and often need to multitask just to get by. Facilitating work outside of the workplace has to be a consideration for any business owner looking to expand his or her business.

As a business owner you’ll also need to understand the threats that are inherent by allowing foreign devices to access your network, as well as the issues that come with allowing your data, the lifeblood of your business, to be accessible on other networks. With sensitive data breaches costing companies thousands of dollars, can your company sustain itself if you were put in that unenviable position?

The IT professionals at BlackCSI can help you by providing all relevant information so that you can make informed decisions about what content to block and what content to make accessible to maximize your organization’s productivity while keeping your staff’s needs in mind. It’s a connected world we live in and limitations placed on your staff’s ability to receive information, could actually be a hindrance to your organization's productivity.

There are several variables you need to address when designing and implementing your company’s BYOD policy. These include:

• Specify which devices will be permitted on the network.
• Establish static and comprehensive security strategy.
• Define how foreign devices can access data on the network.
• Ensure staff knows who owns what on the mobile device.
• Make a decision on what kind of use to ban on foreign devices.
• Combine your BYOD strategy with your acceptable use strategy.
• Create a strategy to quickly and securely on board and remove users

The consideration of these variables will go a long way toward developing a BYOD policy that both fits your organization and ensures that the security of your data isn’t available to be compromised.

At BlackCSI we promote small and medium-sized business efficiency by disseminating expert IT services and support. For more information about our vast array of IT services including comprehensive mobile device management and IT consulting, call us today at (717) 620-3042.