The Bring Your Own Device Phenomena: Balancing Productivity and Corporate Data Security

Abstract

In a world where technology changes faster than organizations can cope with, it has become common practice for most employees to acquire the latest of these technologies and use them for work related activities. This has seen an influx of personally owned devices into the corporate offices and networks thus creating a host of security challenges on one hand and improving overall employee productivity on the other. The main objective of this research study was to find out how organizations can strike a balance between BYOD productivity and corporate data security. The study primarily focused on the insurance industry in Kenya due to the high sensitive nature of data and information they handle. This study made use of exploratory case design. It also utilized primary data only which was collected through questionnaires and in-depth interviews. The respondents' were from two insurance firms, herein referred to as Company A and Company B. From analysis of data collected, it has come out clearly that as much as the term BYOD seems all too new to most employees it is a practice that has been going on for quite a while. It is also very clear that management does understand the concept very well, and they are aware of BYOD impact on productivity. However, adoption of BYOD has not been embraced as much as in the western countries and industries. This is as a result of a host of challenges that come from own device usage key been security challenges. However this is set to change as organizations continue to realize the full potential of BYOD and especially its impact on employee productivity and as such they have started embracing it amid a lot of infrastructure upgrades and security solutions to ensure safe onboarding.