The enhanced mobility of today’s workforce brings about a revolutionary change in the way companies conduct business. Therefore, productivity and collaboration is a must for any small business.

Nowadays, companies are focusing more on communication among employees. So, many of them are turning to innovative trends such as BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and BYOA (Bring Your Own Application) trends to improve productivity in day-to-day operations.

In fact, according to Slashdot.org, “For anyone who thought Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies were a passing fad, research firm Gartner has some news for you: using your personal device in an office context will become increasingly commonplace over the next few years.”

Gartner studies reveal “that 38 percent of companies will stop providing company-owned mobile devices to employees by 2016, making BYOD mandatory for a broad swath of the working population.”

Business Benefits of BYOD and BYOA Trends

These two rapidly growing trends, BYOD and BYOA, are surfacing in a growing number of organizations. Accessibility, simplicity, and availability are just a few reasons why BYOD and BYOA has grown in popularity.

Information Technology (IT) has changed the way employees work, and enabled organizations to build an environment that suits their workforce in lieu of force-fitting employee workflow to outdated IT infrastructures.

Equipping your company with BYOD policies, provide employees with the benefit of utilizing their personal devices (i.e., smartphones, laptops, tablets, etc.) and the ease of use associated with knowing how to use them. Meanwhile app developers are real hero’s in the BYOA mobile market; bringing innovative file sharing, sales, collaboration, presentation, and knowledge base apps to an employees fingertips. Beyond this, BYOD and BYOA trends have opened the door to additional business benefits. Here’s a look at five BYOD and BYOA benefits you may not be familiar with:

1. Management Flexibility

   Both trends ease the management burden of a small business by removing the need to select and manage a technology provider and plan.

2. Streamlined Workflow

   Personal devices are more advanced in comparison to many company-enabled devices. For instance, when an employee is equipped with BYOD best practices he or she can use personal devices to work more effectively.

3. Remote Working Support

   BYOD supports telecommuting opportunities; making work more flexible and easier, irrespective of location. With BYOD and BYOA, there are less boundaries associated with physical working areas — meaning you and your employees are free to work from any location.

4. Escalated Productivity

   If you provide more flexibility in working environments for your employees, increased productivity will follow. Since employees are generally more aware of their personal devices and associated issues, they can perform better with less complication.

5. Decreased IT Investment

   When BYOD and BYOA strategies are implemented it can curtail a lot of investment in purchasing equipment, maintenance, training, and software that is generally required to maintain an effective IT infrastructure. be required.

BYOD and BYOA Best Practices

According to Greyhound Research, the best practices for BYOD and BYOA include:

• BYOD and BYOA present great opportunities for companies to look at their existing IT infrastructure and embrace the cloud. Cloud technology is at an adoption peak right now because of data security, and file sharing capabilities.
• Companies should value the data first rather than the device because focusing on data security is more vital for an organization. Small businesses should develop a mobile strategy to secure customer data that includes recommendations from IT, sales, personnel management, and any legal compliance departments.
• Small businesses should ascertain visibility into which devices and technologies are being used  via email and network access. Mobile and marketing management solutions can be used to enforce employee productivity.

Jagadish Thaker is a business writer, writing on behalf of Softweb Solutions Inc., an awarding winning mobile app development company. He enjoys sharing technology related articles on mobile, HTML5, and UI/UX. Connect with Softweb Solutions on Twitter.

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