Bring-Your-Own-Phone Is A Win-Win

While employers say a mobile phone is necessary for four out of every five staff positions, less than one in five provide those items to employees.
In fact, a 2018 Samsung survey found that 80% of its respondents said employees can’t do their jobs effectively without a mobile phone, yet only 17% of enterprises provide mobile phones to all employees.
Given those factoids, there is a positive trend happening in today’s business world that is aiding company profits.
The increasing necessity of smartphones on the job is resulting in more and more companies adopting the concept of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD).
Jon Robinson is the president of Lunar says the ubiquity of the personal mobile phone combined with the technological advances, have made the benefits of BYOD more appealing than ever to small businesses.
In the past, to maintain a degree of convenience and oversight, companies traditionally either had to provide a desk landline, a corporate cell phone or both.
Today, something more in terms of
Research from Frost & Sullivan highlights how widespread the BYOD trend has become. The survey indicated 70% of U.S. businesses currently support BYOD.
To business leaders, the positive appeal lies in everything from increased productivity, to cost savings, to fewer IT and administrative headaches.
In today’s business landscape, an employee’s personal smartphone may be the only phone a business needs.

• Increased productivity and satisfaction: With a BYOD model, employees don’t have the learning curve associated with operating a new device, whether it’s a landline or a corporate cell phone. For example, employees who are loyal to Apple products don’t have to become acclimated to a completely different operating system. The ease, comfort and familiarity of using their own device for work enables employees to be more productive.
  With the corporate cell phone model, budgets tend to be limited, resulting in businesses opting for older devices. The frustrations that come with operating an older device can be avoided when an employee uses their own device.
• Cost savings: A standard office phone system can cost anywhere from $300 to $1,000 per user, a significant price to pay for something an employee may not deem as useful as their own personal device. These cost savings extend even further considering that with a BYOD approach companies don’t have to shoulder the costs of buying, upgrading and maintaining landlines and corporate cell phones.
• Reduction in IT and administrative headaches:BYOD also helps companies eliminate the administrative headaches, such as managing mobile plans and ensuring that employees are not going over their designated data usage. When employees are responsible for maintaining their personal cell phone, businesses eliminate the time spent issuing devices, updating software, tracking down lost devices, etc.
• New technology makes BYOD even easier:New technology is making BYOD even easier for both businesses and employees. Mobile devices are no longer limited to a single phone number, and when a business has the ability to assign and reassign business phone numbers to an employee’s personal cell phone, the business still has ownership of the communication and can ensure privacy for the employee.

By adopting new enterprise texting and calling solutions, businesses can completely replace corporate phones, yet maintain the valuable conversations contained within them. For the sales department, these solutions can mean the difference between closing a deal from a now-departed employee’s pipeline and that employee taking the deal with them when they leave.
BYOD practices help companies reduce costs and avoid the administrative and IT hassles of purchasing and maintaining devices. Employees benefit from the ease, comfort and productivity of using their own smartphones and avoid the inconvenience of carrying around multiple phones. As companies look to take advantage of the benefits of BYOD, and advances in technology continue to make this approach an even simpler and more efficient way of doing business, adoption of this practice will only continue to increase. 

Jon Robinson is the president of Lunar, a Salesforce Partner and the creators of Uplink.