Nine tips for BYOD success

BYOD is the latest trend to portray how far IT has come in understanding and responding to what employees want and need in order to be productive. While the mobile workforce can work very well to accelerate productivity, because BYOD brings with it a fundamental shift in networking practices, costs can add up. According to Aberdeen, enterprises spend an extra $170,000 per year to deploy 1000 mobile devices via BYOD. To put that in more general terms, a typical BYOD model costs 33% more than the traditional corporate-wireless model.

As desks become cluttered with more gadgets, bandwidth becomes an increasingly hot commodity. Without performance monitoring tools, employees are forced to ‘grin and bear’ the hassle of slower networks. Curb this before your inbox is flooded with complaints by proactively monitoring network bandwidth.

1. Don’t forget about wireless bandwidth

Security issues raise the biggest red flag for BYOD. Data loss, breaches, lost and stolen devices - the list goes on. Too often, the enterprise only thinks about the crisis plan post-breach, rather than investing in the tools needed to prevent mishaps. Shift away from a reactive approach because clean-up could be costly - the average cost of a data breach in 2011 was $5.5 million.

2. BYOD = another security gap

How many fires do you put out every day? It’s exhausting. Add another with BYOD. Imagine the false alarms IT faces when deciding who is actually up to no good. There’s a big difference between a corporate neighbour and a van in the parking lot. Rogue devices may be unknown to the network, but they aren’t always a threat. Companies with the ability to exclude those who aren’t a threat can streamline the monitoring of suspicious network access.

3. What really constitutes a threat anyway?

When enterprises deploy BYOD, the help desk is expected to service multiple devices and software platforms. While the IT department doesn’t control the software, devices or policies, employees still need working phones to be productive and will turn to IT for help - regardless of whether IT has the time or resources to provide the extra support. The solution: regardless of whether you employ BYOD or not, make sure the IT team has the resources to help with devices.

4. Funding the help desk

Can you track and store who accessed your networks, when and where via wireless? Historical data has bigger implications than you think, especially when it comes to compliance and security. It’s important to capture real-time data, but also to log user behaviour over time.

5. Snapshots don’t show the whole picture

Coffee shops, airports and anywhere with a Wi-Fi connection are the new ‘offices’. This is one of the strongest BYOD drivers, but new mobility presents more challenges. Unsecured access points and forgotten application updates puts data at risk and can harm the network.

The solution: make sure you have clear guidelines to ensure secure mobile access and resources in place to govern and monitor mobile workers.

6. The mobile worker

Think about the common image of IT - those guys in the closet that update my system after 5.00 pm. Network managers have to be more upfront about enforcing policies and educating employees because now, devices don’t sit in the office overnight. Another task for IT to manage - with less time on its plate.

7. BYOD fosters a bigger operational role for IT

A drastic measure to save money: securing networks by isolating mobile access to a separate VLAN, outside the corporate network. IT can utilise an existing NMS without adding any mobile device management capabilities. However, the security gap remains - at least until you can track individual users.

8. Frugal won’t cut it

Start with the legwork - you need to understand who is already using personal devices during work and off hours. Take the upfront investment to have honest conversations about how the use of technology is shifting in your organisation to position you well for budget planning.

9. You can’t ignore the issue

Ignorance isn’t bliss with BYOD. If you fail to put a strategy in place for managing mobile devices, employees will still use those devices on the network. But by investing in tools to gain proper visibility, governance and control, IT can work with employees and their devices of choice while improving network performance.

Bottom line - BYOD can be a win-win.

Image credit ©iStockphoto.com/PeskyMonkey