Identifying the hidden costs of BYOD

Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policy has become the modern trend for performing official task more efficiently or perhaps as organizations believe that it is a great way to reduce IT cost. BYOD came into effect as a result to improve productivity and give a little push to employees for performing better as they get to do their work on the devices they admire.

Although BYOD was made possible to promote efficiency and cost-savings, the policy is blurring the line between official and personal use of devices that is making it difficult to define the true cost here. And when it comes to offering mobile devices, there's always hidden cost involved. This means that organizations keep paying for something it shouldn't be. Thus, enterprises need to be fully aware of the risks that is causing additional IT expenses.

Spending money to save money

Initially, BYOD may seem like a great option to save IT overhead, but organizations that overlook to set ideal BYOD policies and prepare its network may encounter unwanted extra costs. There's a host of things that you need to consider. First comes security that means organizations need to ensure that their network is prepared to handle the new flow of traffic, securely. Security is the most crucial aspect here for protecting business data, which is continuously exchanged over these devices. In case of large-scale BYOD program, organization may need to consider hosted solution or invest in network upgrades.

Developing an effective BYOD policy requires time and money and organizations need to ensure that employees are well-versed with this policy. If they ignore these policies, organization could expect minimized productivity and draining IT resources as a result of excessive use of personal activities. All of this will directly taper company's bottom line.

With time, additional hidden costs will emerge as employees will demand software and device updates. IT managers need to ensure that they deliver timely updates and that these upgrades must proliferate successfully for all mobile devices. However, IT will also have to invest in help desk resources targeted at addressing these requirements.

Balancing it all

BYOD isn't the only player in the market. There are multiple other choices available that includes corporate-owned, personally enabled (COPE) devices, which means that organizations provide employees with devices for usage. Another one is choose-your-own-device (CYOD) policy, where employees get a chance to pick up corporate-approved device of their own choice. Based on your requirements, you can choose any of these models and get along with your idea of letting employees work on mobile devices.