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Compliance And The BYOD Policy

Using Personal Devices for Work Purposes Jessica Bakkers – Waterford Technologies Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies are becoming a common practice

Using Personal Devices for Work Purposes

Jessica Bakkers – Waterford Technologies

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies are becoming a common practice across many organizations. Historically, technological advances within an organization have had a significant impact on increasing budgets. Updating and replacing outdated systems can lead to a large yet necessary expense. Companies are constantly challenged to keep up to date with their evolving clientele. Implementing a BYOD policy has benefited the company as well as the employee in different ways. From the company’s perspective, they no longer need to purchase expensive, stationary equipment. From the employee’s perspective, they can use a smartphone or tablet that they are comfortable using to access their work email, applications and data.

While the organization sees a substantial amount of benefits, the IT department feels the strain of BYOD policies. Now with the adaptation of personal devices, there are a few red flags that the IT staff has to prepare for.

Supporting All Devices

Since the company does not require a standard device for all employees, the IT department has to prepare to support all devices and operating systems. When users need assistance with devices, multiple systems make it difficult for the IT staff to alleviate the issue.

Security Risks

A breach of data could be detrimental to your company, however, BYOD makes it difficult to enforce standard security measures. While the device is used for work-related matters, personal use remains a primary function of the device. The device is not owned or issued by the company, so upon employee termination, the device remains with the owner. Applications and data belonging to the company can still be stored on the device until it is removed by the former employee.

While organizations are required to abide by compliance regulations, there are still ways companies can protect their business and their sensitive data from BYOD employees. By following the best practices for cloud email archiving, any email that passes through the company’s server will be retained and easily retrievable even if an employee leaves the company or if the device is lost or stolen.

Organizations that combine both email and file archiving tools maximize their protection benefits as well as establishing an invaluable data management solution that will reduce stored data and reduce file storage costs.

If you would  like to see a quick demo of how an archiving & compliance tool can benefit your business just register here