Beyond BYOD

Privacy agreements – and laws – are yet another concern. The further organizations reach into employees' devices, the greater the risk of collecting personal data and violating the individual freedoms of device owners and their family members. 

“Personally, I'd have qualms about giving an employer full access to my device,” says Johnson. “Employees are justifiably skeptical, unless there's a ‘sandbox' around the corporate data on their phones or tablets.”

He says this type of data partitioning, like BlackBerry now offers on its phones, will increase the possibility for employees to have what he calls “multiple-personality” devices. “We'll continue to face limitations until we can do that well,” Johnson says. “As things change, it's a reality with which we continue to struggle. We have to be flexible about personal devices. That's an important part of hiring and employee retention in today's society.”

That's no less a reality for organizations with a fraction of John Deere's resources. 

“Most of those small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are flying blind,” says Andrew Jaquith (below), chief technology officer and senior vice president of SilverSky, a Milford, Conn.-based cloud security solutions provider. “The big thing they're wrestling with is they don't have a security department with a lot of tools. They know the problems in a general sense, but they lack depth of expertise.”

What's more, he says, the benefits of having fewer employees to worry about are overbalanced by new generations of devices, new apps and cloud storage, which are all multiplying the risks. For SMEs to effectively deal with the ever-changing face of BYOD, Jaquith recommends keeping it simple.

“They have to stress the basics, like having a strong mobile policy in place and ensuring that employees buy into it,” he says. “Encrypt email and calendars, something that's pretty easy to accomplish on BlackBerry and iOS. With a smaller company, it's also easier to control what types of devices are on the network.”

Past those basics, Jaquith suggests SMEs take a hard look at how to manage sensitive data, use mobile tools like content lockers, and pay close attention to how MDM plans are developed.

“We're in a foundation stage with a lot of stuff around BYOD,” he says. “As an organization, regardless of size, what you do now will make a big difference in the future.”