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Why Do I Need A Mobile Device Policy?

August 23, 2018

 

WhyDoINeedAMobileDevicePolicy

Everything today is mobile.

Mobile phones provide you access to pretty much anything you need.

All of your business and personal needs can be serviced on mobile devices.

From a business perspective this means that…

All of your company data is mobile.

  • Email
  • Files
  • Docs
  • Spreadsheets
  • Plans

Basically any content your company generates can I leave your office whenever someone wants it to.

South Florida business owners seldom think about this until of course an employee quits and you don’t want them to have access to their email anymore ( your company property ). 

Or worse yet, your businesses intellectual property.

Enter the Mobile Device Policy.

Granted, a Mobile Device Policy is only half of the equation.

You actually need a Mobile Device Management System as well. This system should be part of your overall IT department or IT managed services strategy.

But, having a policy is a good place to start.

In your policy, you’ll want to list the guidelines and the rules for how mobile devices interact with your company data.

After all...it’s your company and your data.

All it takes is one event that costs you money and you’ll be frustrated for not having someway to control and manage your data.

Some guidelines for things you might want to put inside of your mobile device policy are:

  • What data is allowed to be kept on the mobile device.
  • What apps must be installed on the phone.
  • And your policy for data removal when and if the employee leaves.

There is an ugly underside to this: Certain employees may not want to participate in the policy. And you’ll have to be okay with that.

There are some workarounds:

  • You can provide company mobile phones/devices.
  • You can pay for part of their service.

Note - If you have a cloud service like Microsoft Office 365 or Google G Suite, staff can still access data remotely via a web browser.

They just lose the immediacy of a mobile app.

There are other workarounds available.

Fortunately ( and unfortunately ), you still have the concept of choice.

Having a general set of guidelines when someone begins employment with your company helps to make sure that your computing environment is protected, structured and in order.

A little effort up in building a Mobile Device Policy will help you to enforce rules later on when things come up.

And things will come up.

Need help drafting a Mobile Device Policy for your South Florida company?

We do that.
 

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