BYOD or CYOD: Which is the best EMM option?

As organizations are finding ways to make it more convenient for employees to manage workloads, BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy seems to be fair way off. But what enterprises are mainly focusing on is to balance productivity along with security. Most employees bring their personal devices to workplace and access company data and applications that enables them to get the work done in real-time.

BYOD gained popularity soon after its launch but what bothers enterprises is security gaps. Not all devices used to work remotely are safe and this leaves company open to risks. According to Gartner, one in four business users admitted to having security issues with the devices. So which is the best choice: BYOD or CYOD?

BYOD

BYOD policy allows employees to bring their personal devices such as tablets, laptops or mobile phones to office and use them for official purposes. They get access to company data that lets them work from home as well. This policy have helped organizations save a great deal of hardware cost as the purchase and maintenance of the device is at the expense of the employee and not the company.

But the security flaw of BYOD is what keeps organizations from implementing the approach. It can be difficult to control device or restrict access to data. Organizations planning to implement this policy needs to ensure that everything falls into place to prevent security issues.

CYOD

In CYOD (Choose Your Own Device) policy employees are required to choose from a suite of preapproved devices for security, reliability and durability. This allows them to pick up the devices they are comfortable working on. Security solutions such as security software and firewall are pre-installed along with network settings. The drawback is the obvious one, which is organization will have to purchase the device and maintain it as well.

Ultimately, you need to decide what's best for your business and policy that can suit your requirements. BYOD can be a reasonable option for those with narrow budget, but if you need to maintain optimum security then it's better to go with CYOD policy.