What is BYOD? Why Is It Important?

One of the largest trends impacting businesses over the last decade is the rise of bring your own device (BYOD), where employees are using personal devices to access work-related systems on their organization’s networks.

The term BYOD was first coined in 2005 but only rose to popularity over the last decade or so as the number of devices around the world skyrocketed. These devices included everything from mobile phones, laptops and tablets to a variety of other smart devices.

Today, the number of connected devices stretches into the tens of billions. They also extend much further than ever before across the network, with connected Internet of Things (IoT) devices reaching all the way from the sensors on the factory floor to the connected TVs in the corporate office. 

With the rapid increase of mobile devices came the many benefits offered by increased connectivity. Employers gain the benefits of increased productivity (an estimated six weeks extra of work on average, equating to approximately $5114 per employee). There is additional financial savings for employers as employees take on ownership for devices. Employees gain, too, with the flexibility to work from anywhere. 

As a result, 67 percent of employees reportedly used their own devices at work in 2021, and 59 percent of organizations have adopted BYOD as part of their organizational philosophy. In total, the market for BYOD technology is expected to reach $366.95 billion by 2022 — a number that is only expected to grow in the years to come.

However, BYOD also brings new challenges. Businesses around the world are now forced to implement new BYOD policies to limit possible cybersecurity and compliance risks associated with employee-owned devices connecting to their corporate networks. As a result, IT organizations are charged with monitoring and managing these devices across the organization, which requires implementation of robust MDM tools, like Addigy, to help them securely manage both corporate and non-corporate owned devices across their network.

The benefits of increased connectivity are more important than ever in today’s remote working world. All trends point to remote work being here to stay as companies big and small announce plans that will allow employees to work from home as a benefit for the long term. BYOD helps make this shift to remote work possible. With the ability to easily connect devices, as well as the fast implementation of cloud-based productivity tools and online business applications, it is easier than ever for employees to work from anywhere and for employers to support a BYOD environment.

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Additional Resources

We recommend reading: Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Policy Tips and Best Practices by Corey Shields at Ntiva.