'Bring Your Own Device'

In this post, I am introducing to a brand new technology which top IT companies are adopting & is referred as 'Bring Your Own Device'. So, what does this term really mean? Yes, surely the words in this terminology  implicates its own meaning which makes much more sense. In simple words, 'Bring Your Own Device' means 'you can bring your own device in the company for your official work'. 

Now, lets get in more depth of this terminology and the respective technology. To be more technically precise, 'Bring Your Own Device' (also abbreviated as 'BYOD') refers to the currently emerging or emerged company policies specifically designed to facilitate employees to bring their personally owned computing devices like laptops, smartphones and tablets to the workplace for the official use. This is an emerging trend in the current IT sector. Also, this practice has already established its roots in today's education system wherein students are permitted to bring their own tech. devices to the learning atmosphere for educational purposes.

According to Wikipedia, about 75% of the employees in the high growth markets such as Brazil and Russia & 44% in the developed markets are already using their own tech. devices at work.

The term BYOD has certain variations like:-

• 'Bring Your Own Technology' (abbreviated as 'BYOT') which conveys the same meaning as the term BYOD.
• 'Bring Your Own Phone' (abbreviated as 'BYOP') which specifically focuses on smartphones.
• 'Bring Your Own PC' ( abbreviated as 'BYOPC') which concentrates on PCs.

Also, there are few more related terms like 'Bring Your Own Computer' (BYOC), 'Bring Your Own Laptops (BYOL), 'Bring Your Own Applications' (BYOA). These terms are not much highlighted in the market but I mentioned them just for additional knowledge.I hope you are well acquainted with this term now.

                                               (image source:- http://www.industrial-ip.org/)

Just like a coin, this trend has its two sides viz. dark side and fair side.Lets focus on fair or positive side first because it is more dominating over the dark side. So, following are  the main advantages of BYOD :-

Advantages:-

1. BYOD is  financially beneficial to the companies adopting this trend, to a great extent. This practice can save a considerable financial budget of any company. How? let me put it in layman's words. BYOD policies enable a particular company to save much money spent on purchasing high tech gadgets or devices for the official use of each and every employee. As employees will take care of their respective gadgets according to their personal suitability and choices, there is no need for company to worry about it. This surely saves a company from spending a lot of funds and from other complex processes involved. This point is beneficial from corporate perspective
2. BYOD is specially meant for employees. So it's prime advantage is obviously focused on the employee end. Employees feel more comfortable using their own devices or gadgets instead of using unknown devices offered by the company. This directly boosts employee morale and job satisfaction. Employees feel more in control in the office environment. This process increases the overall productivity of the company. Thus, this point is beneficial from employee's as well as company's perspective.

Now, lets focus on the dark side of this trend. Following are the related disadvantages :- 

Disadvantages:-

1. The main disadvantage of this practice is that it incorporates a range of security vulnerabilities and other concerns of data protection if it is not correctly managed. In other words, this trend can be a potential threat to the company security or company's private data if it is not properly applied. 
2. If a particular employee ends up losing his/her device which contains classified official data of the company, then it will surely cause a lot of problems to the company by increasing the probability of company security damage.

So, of course there are certain disadvantages. But if proper related measures are taken, these risks can be neutralized and BYOD can be applied with a considerable reduction in the risks. I hope you have got a crystal clear idea of this BYOD concept. Now, lets move on to its market scenario.

                                                (image source:- http://webhostinggeeks.com/)

BYOD Market :-

According to a well known research firm called Marketsandmarkets, Global BYOD Market is expected to grow from $67.21 billion in 2011 to $181.39 billion by 2017, at an estimated CAGR of 15.17% from 2012 to 2017 This surely replicates a clear scope of market growth in this industry.

(for reference:-

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/16558067-global-bring-your-own-device-market-worth-18139-billion-by-2017)