October 04, 2013, 10:15 AM — We’ve long been hearing about the many productivity benefits of users bringing their own devices to work and using them for both business and personal matters. But corporate-liable devices make life oh-so much easier – at least for telecom managers, security operations personnel and enterprise help desks. Whatever path you take, you can’t escape having to manage and secure end-user devices and corporate data. But let’s take a look at a few arguments for IT not relinquishing top-down control when it comes to end-user computing and networking in mobile environments.
1. You Could Get a Better Grip on Cost Control
It could be costing your company more money operationally to embrace personal-liable (BYOD) devices. In the BYOD model, employees negotiate their own contracts and pay their own monthly service plan bills directly to the carrier. But if the enterprise is reimbursing the employee for some portion of the bill, the company is likely to be paying a higher rate than if it conducted the contract negotiations itself. Employees simply aren’t as skilled at carrier negotiation as your telecom department.
2. You Could Enjoy Economies of Scale
Even if your employees were top-notch telecom service plan negotiators, they simply don’t have the volume clout that would give them the leverage they’d need to keep their – and ultimately your – service costs to a minimum. Organizations can reap huge benefits from using a couple of carriers and playing one off the other, threatening to move if terms and prices aren’t to their liking. Pooling plans and volume hardware purchases can sometimes deliver savings of up to 25%, while consumers, no matter how savvy, will pretty much always pay retail.
3. You Could Breathe a Bit Easier about Security
You never want to get nonchalant about security matters. New risks are showing up everyday and will continue to haunt you no matter what ownership model(s) you use. Still, as you protect employee devices from malware, data theft and privacy invasions it can be simpler and less error-prone to apply controls and maintain software and patch versions on devices you procure, provision, track and understand. Standards for processes, versions and maintenance, in general, are a boon to data security.
4. Employee Productivity Could Actually Rise, if You’re in Charge
With employees out there on their own, they might experience downtime or breakage of their devices that it’s up to them to fix. If users are out of commission for a period of time, that means the productivity benefits of mobility to the company aren’t happening.
5. Own the Mobile Phone Numbers (And Keep the Business)
Employees constantly on the go likely have their cell numbers prominently displayed on their business cards - whether hard copy or digital. In a BYOD scenario, the number belongs to the user at hand.
