As the work environment continually evolves, more digital tools become available to the workforce. Nowhere else are these disruptions as transformational as in the area of cloud solutions—allowing employees to either work on the go or remotely. And with the advent of smartphones, you get to see new ideas in the workplace. Regardless, this translates to the emergence of new possibilities.
Formerly, the “BYOD”– Bring Your Own Device revolution anchored the move towards staff hardware resources flexibility. But in today’s fast-paced technological advancements, a new trend is gradually emerging in the shape of Bring Your Own Application (BYOA).
Rather than rely on employer-provided software, today’s employees tend to favor their own apps for purposes of file sharing, realtime communication, conferencing, amongst other functions.
Challenges of BYOA in a Firm
At first glance, BYOA seems faultless in providing employees with the self-sufficiency and dexterity demanded by the self-paced work environment. Nevertheless, under the surface it poses contentious challenges for today’s firms.
To begin with, although BYOA may ultimately avail employees flexibility, that may come at the cost of your IT department having to deal with a myriad of apps in the same work environment.
Over and above the concern of losing control of data, BYOA generally contributes to an overall security risk to a considerable extent. Primarily, your IT team might grapple with regaining control of business data storage modes. Besides, it’s access and usage.
More so, firms may have a hard time evaluating whether the employee geared apps offer adequate security, data confidentiality or comply with industry regulations.
In short, a below-par execution of BYOA could culminate in a cluttered business landscape. With apps scattered throughout the organization, each holding sensitive data, it becomes a challenge for the IT department to find, manage, and secure the information effectively.
Shielding the BYOA Environment
Undoubtedly, the most convenient way to mitigate your firm from the problems associated with the BYOA trend would entail availing all the necessary apps the employees need in-house.
However, that may be a tall order in the current millennial marketplace. Furthermore, a significant number of employees find it hard to settle for less and thus demand the optimal technology.
In that regard, you have to evaluate your workforce and establish the ideal applications to use in a work environment to curb the concern. Conversely, you might also consider developing your own app directory that provides guidelines for admission of secure software in the work environment.
Ultimately, an app directory serves as a compromise between granting your employees free reign over the apps and a concerted effort to curtail the applications.
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