The principle seems simple: businesses avoid the burden of supplying mobile devices to staff by letting them bring their own. But as corporate research has recently shown, businesses are trending away from BYOD given the logistical and technical difficulties involved.

We admit there are great arguments against BYOD when it comes to IT-centric devices such as laptops, notebooks and tablets—but what about phones?

Pros for Bring-Your-Own-Phone

• Companies don’t have to cater for individuals’ tastes and preferences, buying dozens of different smartphones to keep users happy and productive.
• Staff are likely to look after their own device better than they would a company phone (especially one they don’t want). Plus, if they do damage or lose it, it’s their responsibility.
• Domestic tariffs are often cheaper than business tariffs especially when used mainly in the UK.
• Domestic tariffs are often a fixed price for ‘all you can eat’ which means that businesses can easily agree a fixed sum for the user to claim back and thus make budgeting for mobile costs a lot more simple – no surprise bills.

Cons for Bring-Your-Own-Phone

• There are security implications when staff can access your network through their personal phone.
• Agreeing what costs should be attributed to the user and what should be attributed to the company can be difficult. 
• Policies on lost or damaged phones are also difficult to agree upon. With domestic contracts, it can be a lengthy process to replace a lost phone. Does the company want staff who rely on mobiles phones to go for weeks without one before a replacement arrives?
• Managing a host of users with different devices can be difficult in terms of business applications.

As you can see there are decisions to be made, and BYOD is not as straight forward as one might initially think when it comes to phones.

But in my experience most of the cons can be easily addressed. I don’t think it is a case of “to BYOD or not to BYOD” but rather to look at the whole principle as part of the wider picture. Does BYOD give a company financial benefits and simplify operational issues?

Then the pro’s suddenly change. The argument ‘for’ BYOD is suddenly stronger.

Consider this:

• Companies with VoIP business phone systems have the ability to ‘twin’ a mobile phone with a desk phone so that they ring simultaneously. As such, staff only need to publish their DDI desk number and not their mobile. Some VoIP business phone systems even have apps that can be deployed securely on smartphones to give full call control to users on mobiles. As the licensing and ability to use the applications are controlled by the company this puts the employer squarely in control.

• With a solution like this in place, all calls are routed though the main business phone system which empowers the company in terms of how to route the calls. For example, if a member of staff with a BYOD device should leave the organisation, then the company can simply re-route any calls received to another user. This means continuity of business for the company and has the added benefit that the leaver is not getting calls. (they may well now be working at a competitor)

So the bottom line for me is this:  Any company with a VoIP phone system will likely win with a BYOD policy.  Yes they will have to figure out what happens when the device is lost and how much to compensate the employee, but it will allow them to begin to utilise the power of their IP business phone system, improve call handling and give phone choice to their employees.

What do you think?  Leave a comment below and let us know…