Bring your own device (BYOD) is not a new phenomenon but is still not one that is quickly employed by businesses all over. BYOD is a product of a need for change when it comes to mobile devices in the workplace, so much that it comes with its many benefits like workforce productivity and an overall reduction in technology costs. We are on the cusp of a BYOD era, one where work life is slowly intermingling with personal life.

CloudTweaks refers to this as “Prosumerization,” a nifty term that combines professional with consumer, and businesses are seeing this as many of their employees are carrying one, if more than one, device on their person – one for personal and one for business. To shed the cost of work paying for the second, a lot of companies are asking their employees to use their own device for work and personal-related affairs and, in turn, they’ll go ahead and foot some of the bill.

Of course, this brings about the whole security issue. IT managers have to come up with policies in relation to BYOD because of network sensitivity. It wouldn’t make much sense for a company to save costs on devices, only to have their networks taken down and sensitive information breached all because there were no security processes in place.

The whole point of BYOD is to promote a better user experience. Professionals tend to be more productive when they can choose which devices to use, as opposed to being forced to use one they may or may not be comfortable with. It is up to IT managers to develop a policy to help mitigate the risks with BYOD. Software solutions, for example, can help manage security needs.

In the work scenario, employees would ideally only need access to their corporate e-mail from a personal device, along with any other work-specific applications that would allow for work on-the-go. Companies adopt BYOD with the assumption that employees will be more productive if they are using their own devices.

On the personal side of things, even if IT implements a security protocol with support for personal devices, employees may scoff at the amount of control and access the company has over their personal mobile gadgets, even if half the bill belongs to the company.

MaaS360 offers a solution that can help both businesses and employees when it comes to implementing a BYOD policy.

Its BYOD Privacy Settings feature protects personal information on behalf of the employee while successfully allowing personal devices to act as work devices. It helps keep the two separate yet together, making BYOD safe for everyone.

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