Unified Communications is quickly changing the landscape of business productivity. With voice, video, presence and email all being brought under one system and empowering organizations to be more connected than ever, the choice to pursue UC is hardly even a question.
Historically, UC used organization-issued devices: phones, mobile phones, laptops and desktop PCs. But times are changing and today consumer devices are making their way onto commercial networks. This trend, known as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is the next evolution in UC.
So while the question of whetherUCis a viable need for commercial applications is hardly debatable anymore, the next question is how to use those employee devices securely and efficiency with your UC system. There are a few issues to consider before creating a UC and BYOD policy.
The Pros
Integration: Most of the devices are running on the same handful of operating systems, most commonly Apple‘s iOS and Google’s Android. For the most part BYOD integration with UC platforms is built on an app via iTunes or the Google Play store. This means that setting up the device to work is usually a few simple settings including pointing the device at the right server and then inputting user credentials. The experience on the individual device will be completely ubiquitous with the experience on anorganization-issued device. If you no longer wish to give the employee access, you can disable the app running on the device by simply changing credentials.
Cost: Generally with BYOD, a company is able to put more of the cost requirements on the worker. This also alleviates some of the headaches related to preparing hardware for every new employee or chasing down hardware whenever an employee leaves.
Employee Satisfaction: Employees are generally appreciative of the opportunity to use their preferred devices, which is good for morale. As a side effect of this the employees are often going to have the newest tools, which would be very hard for an organization to upgrade so quickly. We have all seen the lifecycle of new products become so short that even when you issue your employees the newest devicethe next version is released in no time. This way the integration with your UC platform isn’t as much device specific as it is operating system specific. The organization can provide some guidelines to employees interested in using their own device and then let the employee take it from there.
The Cons
Security: As I mentioned above, security for BYOD and UC isn’t necessarily all bad. The real challenge is that chances are the user’s devicewon’t be “only” used for UC. If that is indeed the case, it is more difficult for a company to manage security when they allow personal devices to be used for work. Generally the company has to set an acceptable use policy that lives on top of the personal device. But it is hard to mandate certain things. Take for instance social media use. Your company may not want workers on Facebook during the workday, but what about an employee checking in from their personal accounts at lunch? This creates a real grey area. The other consideration may be requiring use of certain security tools such as antivirus software or locking their devices at all times. These can be part of the use policy and part of the expectations set for companies allowing BYOD.
Compliance: If your company is governed by any sort of compliance laws, for instance HIPAA, then you have to make sure that those rules are followed regardless of who owns the device. If contact information or UC integration with customer relations management (CRM) or other systems that contain sensitive data exist, then the systems must be in place to make sure that the data is safe and secure.
Data Retrieval: This goes along with security, but if an employee leaves or is let go, the data that resides on the personal device will need to be retrieved. This expectation has to be set and agreed upon prior to BYOD deployment. Most UC applications are closely tied to customer records, contact information, sales and financial data and more. The good news for IT departments is that this isn’t really a new challenge. In many organizations that have webmail interfaces, people have been “popping” email to separate accounts where they can access them from a personal device. This needs to continue and it needs to be better managed to make sure important and sensitive documents aren’t accessible after the person has parted ways from the organization.
With widely available applications for UC on your own device, BYOD continues to gain momentum. Could a BYOD-friendly UC deployment have a place in your organization? It just may, so long as you plan correctly and set the right expectations with your users up front.
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