Ad Image

How to Handle Your BYOD Hangover

How to Handle Your BYOD Hangover

How to Handle Your BYOD HangoverSo you’ve made the switch to BYOD, now what? The move to BYOD has promised security for employee devices and is supposed to save you money, right? Once you’ve moved to BYOD and set up your policy, everything may not have gone exactly to plan which leaves you in this strange limbo, wondering if you need to abandon BYOD altogether.

This is what Will Kelly of TechRepublic calls the “BYOD Hangover.” The BYOD Hangover is exactly what it sounds like; you’ve been excited and positive about BYOD, have finally implemented you policy and everyone is excited to use their own device. But like with any great party, you have to wake up in the morning and clean up the mess you made the night before. But, the important thing to remember about parties is just because there’s the morning after cleanup, doesn’t mean the party wasn’t awesome.

“A BYOD hangover is just a reaction to the changing nature of BYOD and security in particular,” says Kelly. “Being able to adapt and change is key to adapt your enterprise and secure mobile users while maintaining a thriving BYOD initiative.”

So now that you have to do a little tidying up, where do you begin? The best place to start is with data costs. Review your data costs and look into better solutions. Data will always be a financial suck whether you implement BYOD, EMM or MDM, but considering all options and knowing what you will and won’t pay for on your employee’s phone bills is made easier when you have a solid split billing solution like Cricket Wireless or Good Technology.

Kelly also mentions the most recent and public BYOD scandal; Hilary Clinton and her private email. This might worry you into thinking  something like this could happen within your organization and Kelly wants to reassure you that it probably won’t; this is not actually a BYOD issue, it’s a political issue that they tried to pin on technology. A clear BYOD policy will outline all privacy guidelines and prevent things like this from happening. If an executive does end up doing something like Clinton, it’s important to document the situation in order to protect yourself and your IT department from any ramifications after a security breach.

If you’re still feeling your post-party BYOD headache, take a look at the devices. People aren’t always on top of updating their devices and if an employee decides to bring a Galaxy S2 or an iPhone 3, we may have a justifiable security concern. A remedy for this is to bring in BYOD’s less wild brother, CYOD (Choose-Your-Own-Device). This gives you bit of control over which devices employees are using without forcing them into one particular device. You will provide a limited list of devices to choose from, but will be responsible for all costs related to the device, even the personal data used.

When you do inevitably wake up with a splitting headache and are overwhelmed about where to begin the cleanup remember that making adjustments after the initial adoption of BYOD is completely normal. Take a step back and pinpoint the thing or things that are causing you problems and take the time to reevaluate and adjust them accordingly.

Download Link to MDM Buyer's Guide

Share This

Related Posts