Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is well-established within the business lexicon. Despite this, it can be easy to gloss over the very real BYOD business benefits, and how they can improve processes for your enterprise.
The most important include:
- Increased productivity
- Cost reductions
- Reduced pressure on internal teams
- Employee satisfaction
4 Key BYOD Business Benefits
1. Increased Productivity
Many businesses have spent time weighing up BYOD risks and benefits. Contrary to the fears of many business owners that allowing employees to use their own devices would be a distraction, there’s a growing body of evidence that BYOD actually boosts productivity.
53% of organizations expressed that mobility has positively impacted business processes and employee productivity. And 60% of employees are satisfied with the number of mobile options they have at work.
The reasons for this include:
- The increased customization a personal device offers
- A shorter learning curve for applications due to end-user familiarity with devices
- Greater flexibility means that employees can work anytime, anywhere, and are more likely to put in extra hours.
2. Cost Reductions
BYOD can also be a smart move for cost savings. One business lowered its mobile device costs from $12 million annually to $7.7 million with the implementation of a BYOD initiative.
These figures are just one example from a growing body of evidence for BYOD's potential to deliver substantial cost savings for enterprises. It achieves this in a variety of ways, such as:
- Monthly Plan Costs
Using employees’ personal devices rather than corporate-owned devices not only tends to be cheaper than corporate service plans, it also offers enterprises the opportunity to redirect additional costs.
When an enterprise
- Eliminates Device Purchase and Upgrade Fees
Making employees responsible for the device they use also places device purchase costs and upgrades within their hands. Employers no longer
This has the potential to generate cost-savings of hundreds of dollars per employee, per location, per year, as well as saving considerable man-hours for mobility managers.
- Enables Remote Working
BYOD facilitates wholesale change in where and when your employees work.
BYOD enables remote working, which is now commonplace, for a broader cross-section of your staff who likely have everything they need to work from home in the form of their device.
3. Reduces Pressure on Support Teams
There's a dramatic reduction in device breakage when employees are made responsible for their devices. Longer device life leads to greater familiarity, which in turn boosts employee self-reliance and drives down the volume of service tickets and help-desk calls.
A BYOD program also eliminates the need for support teams to continually update software to ensure devices stay on the cutting-edge. Traditionally, updating corporate software on any scale has proved unwieldy and a huge drain on IT and support staff. Instead, by allowing end-users to update device software as and when it’s needed, BYOD removes the need for large-scale coordination or worrying about who has or hasn’t run the latest IOS update.
4. Employee Satisfaction
Employees are turning to BYOD because they want more control of their work experience, thus improving productivity and job satisfaction. 55% of employees are using their personally owned devices for work at least some of the time.
It’s this flexibility that the modern employee craves, and the days of a clear demarcation between work time and personal time are long gone. BYOD is simply one way to achieve it.
While any organization considering a BYOD program should think carefully about the complexities it involves, it's clear that for those that are bold in adoption, BYOD can generate considerable benefits. Whether through staff satisfaction, cost-savings or productivity.
Don't Ignore the Key BYOD Business Benefits
It's also important to identify the right BYOD management provider for your enterprise. Keep an eye out for vendors that take reimbursement off your hands with direct to carrier payments, can help you set up robust policies, and offer a great end-user experience for your staff. And most importantly of all, look for stability and experience.
Topics: BYOD
