A different kind of party in mobile business technology.

By Sal Cuomo

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is becoming the new catch phrase as more of us rely on our smart phones and tablets to provide us resources when out of the office.  There are some concerns that you should be aware of before allowing an employee access to your network.

Security of the information shared on the network may be at risk if precautions like firewalls, encryption, and regularly changing passwords are not set in place prior to allowing access. This would result in opportunities for those without permission to view files and other contents.

Secondly, files shared from a network access point may be saved to the hard drive of the device accessing.  Why is this a problem?  Imagine your newly disgruntled employee taking your customer list and downloading it to their personal storage device before they quit.

Troubles also linger on the employee side when they B their OD to work.  Personal information like contacts and email accounts may now be accessed by internal company personnel.  This leads to a larger legal issue of personal employee rights and you may want to involve an attorney when considering if BYOD is in your business’s best interest.  You must also determine whether the access to such information is worth the risk of it getting out.

For the most part this era of BYOD is having a positive effect on employee/employer relations.  Employers can provide less expensive equipment and get the same functionality out of their employees.

Though none of us are crazy about working after hours; portability of work resources makes us more flexible to do our jobs away from the office and assist us in maintaining a work/life balance.

Sal Cuomo

Business Technology Consultant