The explosive trend towards mobile technologies in the workplace is like that of a moving train: employers are being forced to get on board or get out of the way. Many of our clients include small to mid-sized legal or CPA firms that must ensure that mobile staff are properly protecting confidential client data, legal and financial records.
Sure, businesses are under pressure to enable greater collaboration on-premise and remotely. They see the productivity benefits of having their staff use consumer devices, called Bring Your Own Device or BYOD. Still, IT should be included in the conversation in order to help the organization protect sensitive corporate data, and maintain a stable environment for application performance.
Creating a BYOD policy for your firm is the first step in getting your head around some of the pitfalls and risks. For example, who is liable if sensitive information is lost? What recourse does the company have to remotely wipe a device, or the corporate data on a device, if the device is lost? Defining a policy helps the company and the employee know the boundaries and risks up front rather than after the fact.
The other benefit in defining a BYOD policy is the IT team can now put together the tools needed to enable the policy with minimal impact to the employee, and management has a clear understanding of the value these tools provide. That’s a win-win for both the company and the employee!
If you haven’t put together a BYOD policy for your company yet, drop me a note and I’ll be happy to help you get started with a draft template.
