BYOD Implementation In Innovate Technologies: Advantages, Implications, And Recommendations

Understanding BYOD

Questions:

1. What are BYODs and how are they currently being used. You should explore a range of applications of BYOD, for example, in areas such as healthcare, education and other software companies.

2. Discuss at least three ways that BYODs could be used to enhance your organisation over the next five years. In particular the CEO would like you to explore ways BYODs could be used to provide opportunities to expand your business both locally and globally. Analyse potential options that could lead to recommendations at the end of your report.

3. Assess the advantages and disadvantages of using BYODs. Consider the current uses by various organisations and possibilities for your organisation (especially those you have considered in tasks 1 and 2 above). Explore the ethical, social and legal considerations, and the potential positive and negative impacts your organisation should consider. These should lead to some recommendations at the end of your report.
 

Innovate Technologies is a Sydney based IT company that works to major fields of software development. The first is the mobile application development, where the company develops a range of efficient and time saving application for mobile users. The second field is the information systems development for large organizations. The company develops and supports both the fields equally but has a major share of its business from the information systems development as the clients associated with the same are billion dollar companies. Hence, Innovate technologies is looking for ways to strengthen its bonds with the existing clients and break deals with new clients. The company has an extremely innovative group of employees who are enthusiastic in developing applications that sync with the latest technologies. The company is looking forward to a way to develop applications that can be sold to its existing information system clients to increase the business if mobile application development sector.

Though the company is relatively new in the field of IT, it has leaped forward with its fast moving services. The company strongly believes in supporting services as a crucial need to make sure the corporate bonds with the clients sustain. The company encourages innovation and is known for developing new services that make use of the new technologies introduced, to help its clients and mobile users get the best of these technologies through new applications. The company is known to have developed major information systems and places a huge amount of significance to ensure security of data. The company is always ready to invest in technologies that would have a positive impact on both the business and lifestyle of its employees.

The report below has been developed by an ICT manager at Innovate Technologies to help the CEO of the organization understand how implementing BYOD can substantially reach all the above goals of the organization. The report has four major sections. The first section is about understanding BYOD, its advantages and disadvantages and the various sectors that have currently implemented BYOD applications. The second section identifies three reasons that explain the need for BYOD to be implemented in Innovate Technologies. This sections also provide ideas that would help the company reach its current goals. The third section details out the various implications that may arise due to the usage of BYOD and the final section has recommendations as to how to overcome these implication and successfully implement BYOD in Innovate Technologies. 

Reasons for BYOD Implementation in Innovate Technologies

2.1 Understanding BYOD

BYOD stands for Bring Your Own Device. BYOD allows employees of an organization to access corporate mails, company Wi-Fi and other privileged company information (Miller, 2012). The concept has rose due to the increasing need of employees to carry their own devices and access company applications through the same for flexibility and convenience. It is a part of the evolution that empowers the organizations practicing them with consumerization of IT, where the customer originated technologies impact the enterprise. These concepts have been bought in to light to reap the advantages of the technologies that originate and develop in the consumer space rather than sourcing the same from the IT enterprise sector (Thomson, 2012).

The term BYOD was initially coined by Intel, however, it was Unisys Corporation that has put the concept into use in most of its business segments with the help of Citrix Systems.

2.2 Advantages of BYOD

The various reasons for enterprises to constantly adopt to the concept of BYOD are listed below

Cost Saving: BYOD enables cost-saving by allowing the employees carry their own devices. The hardware expenses of a company to provide these devices significantly reduces as an employee would not need a secondary device (Bien, 2015). When correctly implemented, BYOD can completely eliminate the need for company issued Blackberry thereby reducing the hardware cost. Software licensing costs and device maintenance is decreased as the devices would be owned by the employees rather than the company.

Figure 1: Impact of BYOD on expenses

Anywhere, Anytime: BYOD provides the ability to access corporate information from anywhere, the need to be continuously present at the desk is reduced (Ballagas, 2014). Especially in support environments the need to be able to access corporate applications from anywhere anytime will help the employee resolve issues at the comfort of their home (Morrow, 2012).

Cutting Edge Technology: The devices carried by employees are usually faster with far better technology than that provided by the company. This is especially true in case of smaller organizations with budgetary constraints (Shim, 2013). By using BYOD the organization can make use of advanced technologies without actually investing in them.

Employee Satisfaction: Employees are happier with the flexibility BYOD provides. Ability to work with their own devices makes the employees more comfortable (Hopkins, 2013). Also, the employee gets to choose the device they would like to work with, rather than use the company mandated devices

Attractive Employer: Organizations that implement BYOD are seen as adaptive organizations that put the comfort of their employees as a priority. This makes the organization an attractive employer there by increasing the recruitment quality.

2.3 Disadvantages of BYOD

Every technology has its own cons list. Understanding them and applying appropriate measures to ground the negative impacts would help an organization use the technology to an advantage.

1. The chances of security breach is high when corporate data is accessed through personal devices. The sheer number of devices connecting increasing exponentially leading to a need to implement advanced measures to ensure security
2. The device may be lost or sold with corporate data still residing in the device.
3. The corporate data may be stored in personal cloud storage.
4. Malware threats increase substantially (Scarfo, 2012)
5. The chances of the current applications used by the company are not compatible with the employee device. The support sector of organization should find ways to implement them on all devices (Ghosh, 2013)
6. Lack of infrastructure to handle network traffic with increasing BYOD users.

2.4.1 BYOD in Healthcare

BYOD in health care segment is currently restricted to a smaller scale as the need for patient data confidentiality is high. Reports of various tests conducted on a patient are uploaded on to the company’s database and the same can be checked by doctors using a tablet (Gwaltney, 2015). However, since IT support for BYOD is not the primary concern in healthcare industries

Implications of BYOD

2.4.2 BOYD in Education

BOYD is being adapted into education sector by changing smartphone from a distraction to an important tool for educational enhancement. Starting from schools to educational universities, e-learning had become the latest trend and the same can be easily implemented through BYOD (Ho, 2015). The need to carry around textbooks and notes can be completely eliminated and the concept of beyond the classroom can be applied broadly (Song, 2014). However, special attention needs to be paid to make sure that the BYOD device is not misused and e- safety needs to be ensured.

2.4.3 Public sector

The public sectors of US and UK has started implementing the BYOD concept at a higher level allowing employees to access the network with personal laptops. However, given the sensitivity of data that prevails in a public sector and the large number of employees associated stringent guidelines as per the new End User Devices Security and Configuration Guidance policy was issued by Communications-Electronics Security Group (CESG) have to be adhered to, to ensure data safety.

2.4.4 IT Sector

BOYD is currently most popular in IT sector with IBM being a lead implementer. Companies with support projects are migrating to BYOD to ensure 24x7 support for clients. The IT sector has dedicated wings to ensure that the devices used adhere to the guidelines listed by the enterprise. The increase in flexibility and feasibility of the working environment of the employee has been a major reason for implementing BYOD. 

3.1 Implementing BYOD as a Sand Box

Innovate Technologies works in the field of mobile application development and information system applications. Both the fields are closely related to BYOD. The company can therefore, implement BYOD in its own organization and use it closely to understand how BYOD works and what the implications with it are (Mansfield, 2012). Once the same is understood and analyzed the company can develop mobile applications that can be sold to large organizations to implement BYOD or to the device owners to make their devices compatible with the BYOD policies of the company. The chances of developing a new product is high when how the work is closely observed, helping the company come with applications that enhance BYOD. The company can expand both globally and locally by supplying these service to corporations implementing BYOD.

3.2 BYOD to enhance support

Since Innovate Technologies develop information system application for large organizations, the need to provide round the clock support to client is essential. By implementing BYOD the company can provide support services 24x7. The employees can address issues as soon as they rise as they are constantly connected to the corporate network. SLA of support services can be easily reached, allowing the company to provide best support services. This would help them enhance their support services with the current clients and also would be helpful to break deals with new clients (French, 2014)

3.3 Cost Cutting and employee satisfaction

The major advantage with the BYOD is its cost saving capabilities with reduced secondary devices and device maintenance. The company works in mobile applications and hence, it is ideally for them to implement the same through BYOD, enhancing the integrity of the company. The company has much more satisfied employee increasing the productivity gains.

Recommendations for Successful BYOD Implementation

When implementing any technologies there are several litigations that may question the ethical sense of the employees and the legal issue the company may face due to the implementation. It is important to realize the possible issue before implementing something to make sure necessary steps are taken to make sure all the issues are correctly addressed

Below listed are the ethical, social and legal considerations to be looked into before implementing BYOD

• The company would have access to the device of the employee and hence employee privacy may be violated
• The employees need to remain ethical when using corporate network and should be responsible to ensure that privileged data is not shared with third parties in any form.
• The need to implement reasonable security on BYOD devices is high to ensure the security of corporate data (Romer, 2014)
• If data security issues arise due to BYOD, the employees device cannot be taken by the company due to lack of ownership
• Data security needs to be enhanced to make sure that third party or unauthorized users don’t have access to this data
• The technically savvy employees may jailbreak the devices eliminating the restrictions to improve security.
• The employees are responsible to apply corporate security patches regularly to protect data (Cook, 2013)
• Accessing corporate sites from public Wi-Fi increases the risk of malware and hackers
• Device locking may not be implemented by employees exposing corporate mails to unauthorized users (Benigno, 2014) 

5. Conclusion

BYOD or Bring Your Own Device is one of the key technologies that lead to the consumerisation of IT where the consumer technologies impact the working on an enterprise. With the rising need for flexible working environment of employee, it is only obvious that BYOD has been implemented in major parts of software sectors. The concept allows the employees to access privileged corporate data through their personal devices. BYOD has become popular due it its cost cutting and employee satisfying capabilities. The need for secondary devices is almost completely eliminated by the concept of BYOD. However, the concept of BYOD is relatively new and hence laws and policies have not being concretely developed around it. Data security and employee privacy are major issues when implementing BYOD and addressing the same is essential to ensure that the integrity of the organization is not compromised.

Innovate Technologies can make the best use of BYOD as the concept would not only provide advantages such as cost cutting but will also help the organization come up with mobile application products that can be sold over to its large clientele that implement information systems. Most of these organizations would be looking into BYOD which is bound to happen in almost all the sectors and hence, Innovate technologies would have a chance to migrate their potential clients to their mobile application development sector as well. The objectives to strengthen bonds with the existing clientele of information system can be achieved by implementing BYOD to enhance support services. Understanding and analyzing how BYOD works can help the company come up with products that support the implementation of BYOD on mobile platforms for the large clientele of information systems to take up mobile application development services as well.

6. Recommendations

Implementing BYOD without a question advantageous to Innovate Technologies. However, extreme care should be taken to provide security to corporate data accessed through BYOD devices and also employee privacy has to be respected. The below policies have to be implemented to ensure the negative impacts of BYOD is reduced

1. As the company cannot develop security applications to all mobile platforms at once, the BYOD has to be implemented in patches allowing devices of one platform at a time to ensure that the security applications are appropriately developed for data security (Tokuyoshi, 2013)
2. To ensure data cannot be accessed by unauthorized users employees with BYOD have to follow the below guidelines mandatorily.
3. Screen locks with passwords are mandatory (Keyes, 2013)
4. All the corporate applications have to be locked or hidden (Donaldson, 2015)
5. Logging in with corporate credentials for all corporate applications
6. Erase the data on the device completely before selling it
7. Install all security patches mandated by the company
8. Make sure that the device is treated as any other corporate device and password sharing has to be restricted (Walker, 2013)
9. Jailbraking and rooting devices is strictly prohibited
10. If the device is lost or stolen the same as to be reported to the company immediately (Jaramillo, 2013)
11. Installation of apps that can pose potential threat to the corporate data security should be restricted (Lim, 2014)
12. Clearly help the employee understand that the device can be lawfully and legally owned by the company to investigate any issues that occurred through the device
13. A strict exit strategy has to defined to ensure that the company data is not accessible to the employee post separation
14. The company data should not be stored in the mobile device permanently and only reading access wherever possible should be provided
15. Clearly define the device maintenance if any is given to the employee (Eslahi, 2014).
16. All the employees has to sign an acceptable use policy declared by the company
17. The company has the right to erase the data remotely in case of stolen or lost device
18. Malware and other hacking threats have to be addressed to with appropriate security measures
19. The company has the right to pull out services without prior notification if a potential threat is identified

The above listed are a brief list of recommendations. While actually implementing BYOD a much more comprehensive policy would be required to be adapted.  

7. References

Ballagas, R., Rohs, M., Sheridan, J.G. and Borchers, J., 2014. BYOD: Bring Your Own Device, UBICOMP.

Benigno, V., Caruso, G., Ravicchio, F., Repetto, M. and Trentin, G., 2014. DO BYOD (BRING-YOUR-OWN-DEVICE) TECHNOLOGIES SUPPORT INCLUSIVE VIRTUAL CLASSROOMS?. ICERI2014 Proceedings, pp.6239-6248.

Bien, D., Negahban, A. and Windsor, J., 2015. BYOD in Practice: A Comparison of Four BYOD Programs.

Cook, T., Jaramillo, D., Katz, N., Bodin, B., Cooper, S., Becker, C.H., Smart, R. and Lu, C., 2013. Mobile innovation applications for the BYOD enterprise user. IBM Journal of Research and Development, 57(6), pp.6-1.

Donaldson, S.E., Siegel, S.G., Williams, C.K. and Aslam, A., 2015. Enterprise Cybersecurity for Mobile and BYOD. In Enterprise Cybersecurity (pp. 119-129). Apress.

Eslahi, M., Naseri, M.V., Hashim, H., Tahir, N.M. and Saad, E.H.M., 2014, April. BYOD: current state and security challenges. In Computer Applications and Industrial Electronics (ISCAIE), 2014 IEEE Symposium on (pp. 189-192). IEEE.

French, A.M., Guo, C. and Shim, J.P., 2014. Current status, issues, and future of bring your own device (BYOD). Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 35(10), pp.191-197.

Ghosh, A., Gajar, P.K. and Rai, S., 2013. Bring your own device (BYOD): Security risks and mitigating strategies. Journal of Global Research in Computer Science, 4(4), pp.62-70.

Gwaltney, C., Coons, S.J., O’Donohoe, P., O’Gorman, H., Denomey, M., Howry, C. and Ross, J., 2015. “Bring Your Own Device”(BYOD) The Future of Field-Based Patient-Reported Outcome Data Collection in Clinical Trials?. Therapeutic Innovation & Regulatory Science, 49(6), pp.783-791.

Ho, R.C. and Chua, H.K., 2015. The Influence of Mobile Learning on Learner’s Absorptive Capacity: A Case of Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) Learning Environment. In Taylor’s 7th Teaching and Learning Conference 2014 Proceedings (pp. 471-479). Springer Singapore.

Hopkins, N., Sylvester, A. and Tate, M., 2013. Motivations for BYOD: an investigation of the contents of a 21st century school bag.

Jaramillo, D., Katz, N., Bodin, B., Tworek, W., Smart, R. and Cook, T., 2013. Cooperative solutions for bring your own device (BYOD). IBM journal of research and development, 57(6), pp.5-1.

Keyes, J., 2013. Bring your own devices (BYOD) survival guide. CRC press.

Lim, K., Jang, Y. and Lee, E., 2014. Research on BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy guidelines with the extension of the. Journal of Digital Convergence, 12(7), pp.21-36.

Mansfield-Devine, S., 2012. Interview: BYOD and the enterprise network. Computer fraud & security, 2012(4), pp.14-17.

Miller, K.W., Voas, J. and Hurlburt, G.F., 2012. BYOD: Security and privacy considerations. It Professional, (5), pp.53-55.

Morrow, B., 2012. BYOD security challenges: control and protect your most sensitive data. Network Security, 2012(12), pp.5-8.

Romer, H., 2014. Best practices for BYOD security. Computer Fraud & Security, 2014(1), pp.13-15.

Scarfo, A., 2012, November. New security perspectives around BYOD. In Broadband, Wireless Computing, Communication and Applications (BWCCA), 2012 Seventh International Conference on (pp. 446-451). IEEE.

Shim, J.P., Mittleman, D., Welke, R., French, A.M. and Guo, J.C., 2013. Bring your own device (BYOD): Current status, issues, and future directions.

Song, Y., 2014. “Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)” for seamless science inquiry in a primary school. Computers & Education, 74, pp.50-60.

Thomson, G., 2012. BYOD: enabling the chaos. Network Security, 2012(2), pp.5-8.

Tokuyoshi, B., 2013. The security implications of BYOD. Network Security, 2013(4), pp.12-13.

Walker-Osborn, C., Mann, S. and Mann, V., 2013. to Byod or… not to Byod. ITNow, 55(1), pp.38-39.