70% Of Canadian Firms Have No BYOD Policy

By: Talha Bhatti  |   September 27th, 2012   |   Business, News, O Canada, Smartphones, Tablets

The rapid acceptance of mobile devices by the general population has seen smartphones and tablets making their way into the work place. In most cases, employers that wish their employees to stay connected with the office at critical periods of work issue their employee specific devices or allow them to keep certain devices that meet certain requirements. The latest trend that is sweeping many companies in the US is the implementation of a BYOD policy. The rise of Bring Your Own Device saves companies money because they do not have to issue each staff member a device and the latest technology makes it easy to communicate with teams, managers and coworkers. However, IDC research shows that 70 percent of businesses in Canada have not implemented any BYOD policy.

 

This can be a problem on many levels. The major issue with BYOD is security. If an employee uses any type of device they want then the employer runs the potential risk of exposing its data to outside sources. For example, IBM recently told all employees that the BYOD policy did not allow the use of Apple’s SIRI because of security reasons. Canadian firms risk breach of security if they do not define what their employees can and cannot do in relation to their smartphones and tablets.

 

Statistics from IDC also show that 60 percent of companies allow their employees to bring in their personal devices to use at work. This shows that Canadian firms understand the importance of smartphones and tablets in the work place but are unable to implement policies to control their use. The problem according to experts in the field is that there are a number of competing platforms in use and the whole BYOD phenomenon is still new. Managers that have to figure out IT policies usually have a hard time dealing with all the different platforms and devices that are becoming popular. Previously most businesses were all BlackBerry and RIM had security built into their system. With the rise of Apple and Android the market has shifted and a lot untested devices are coming into the work place making it overwhelming to control all of them.

 

Source: IT Canada

Photo: Flotech