Striking a balance with BYOD (Bring Your Own Device)
With the advent of the Internet, there has been a massive change in the way people access and process information. Today, it is used to facilitate more productive and cost-effective means of communication. The ability to work beyond the confines of an office and while on the go, gives businesses competitive advantage. From these changes, came the practise of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). Canon Think Big examines the increasing practice of BYOD and how it helps today’s Small to Medium Entrepreneurs (SMEs).
These days, technology has made the exchange of communication so fast; collaborations became so much easier.
Mobility As An Asset
In the old days, sending documents or correspondence to business associates abroad would take days. These days, technology has made the exchange of communication so fast; collaborations became so much easier. It is possible for people from various locations to edit or access a single document concurrently. It is also possible to work on files on a mobile device and share them with others, without the aid of a desktop computer. It is even entirely possible to work from home or work on the go using personal mobile devices, like mobile phones or tablets.
The Practise of BYOD
Bring Your Own Device or BYOD, as defined by Oxford Dictionaries, is the practise of allowing the employees of an organisation to use their own computers, smartphones, or other devices for work purposes.
In the Asia-Pacific region, where people are accustomed to using multiple mobile devices on a regular basis, BYOD is a popular and growing trend. BYOD maximises mobile technology to offer businesses, especially SMEs, the benefits of convenience, ease, speed and cost-effectiveness. With BYOD, constantly “mobile” employees like sales staff or service technicians can enjoy greater accessibility. Being able to access office documents using mobile devices gives them a sense of freedom. And the assurance that they can get everything they need to service clients without having to go back and forth their workplace.
In the first 3 years of pest control specialist Aardwolf Pestkare, the company’s technicians had been manually filling out service reports for each on-site servicing run. But the quality of handwriting and the possibility of accidental damage often left the reports illegible; consequently, this made record keeping a fairly difficult task. To solve this issue, the company introduced computerisation, via the use of electronic PDAs. After 10 years, the company further digitised their service reporting and switched to an Android tablet and Canon printer combination. By doing this, technicians can easily key in service reports on their tablets, have the clients sign them, and print them out in a matter of minutes.
Mobile devices may not have been originally created to print data but technologies such as WiFi, Cloud Computing and various printing Apps now make it possible to produce hard copies of documents that were originally sent and created electronically. These have greatly expanded the use of mobile devices for work. Nowadays, phones have gone beyond voice calls and messaging, they have become handy alternatives to the notebook or laptop.
The Drawbacks of BYOD
Despite its popularity, BYOD is not entirely faultless. For companies who have already adopted BYOD and the ones that are still adamant about it, security remains a major concern. While greater connectivity makes data more accessible, it also makes the company’s information systems more vulnerable to attacks. What happens when BYOD is used maliciously? Sadly, the results may be more harmful than helpful.
There is also the issue of output quality. Can documents from mobile devices be printed with professional-looking quality? Is it possible to print various file types? Also, when there are no proper document management systems in place, BYOD may be counter-productive. How can usage be monitored? Is it possible to tell how many print outs are actually being produced? These are just among a few current BYOD-related issues that need to be resolved.
BYOD and Canon
To help businesses maintain quality while encouraging more productivity, Canon has developed a whole range of business solutions that are designed to address the many issues related to BYOD. From advanced multi-function devices with wireless capabilities to document management software, Canon brings businesses to greater productivity through technologies that work efficiently and effectively with BYOD.
Canon’s award-winning imageRUNNER ADVANCE multifunction devices offer features such as image capture, user interface personalisation, usage tracking and access control, mobile and cloud connectivity and a server-less log in solution. Scanned documents can be converted into editable formats like Microsoft Word and Excel, for quick and easy use, an ideal solution for users on tight deadlines. At the same time, the document conversion service supports more than 120 languages, including simplified & traditional Chinese, Japanese and Korean. Users can scan content to existing cloud destinations such as Microsoft Sharepoint, Salesforce.com, and Evernote, as well as many newer cloud destinations such as Office365, DropBox, PaperPort and GoogleDrive.
The Canon Mobile Printing App helps companies with increasingly mobile staff to achieve business efficiency, as it allows users to access and print documents from mobile devices when needed. The Canon Mobile Printing App makes the imageRUNNER ADVANCE device mobile-ready and provides basic mobile printing from iPhone and iPad so users can print PDFs, images, and webpages easily. The simple server-less application offers convenient printing with quality and professional output.
Canon’s security, print management and cost-accounting solutions also give businesses peace of mind. This range of control features helps prevent unauthorised information access as well as manage security and cost by controlling individual users’ access and usage. The imageRUNNER ADVANCE device’s complementary solution, universal login manager, offer convenient user authentication through various authentication methods to allow easy automation of commonly performed tasks. For printing of highly confidential documents, print jobs are released only after users have authenticated themselves at the device.
Therefore™ Online is a document management system that enables the entire organisation to capture, store, search, retrieve, collaborate, manage and distribute documents with ease. The Therefore™ MFP MEAP application for the imageRUNNER ADVANCE device ensures that important information such as indexing is set by the user at the point of scanning. This means information is organised and stored properly and can be searched and retrieved easily, even while on the go. As Therefore Online™ runs on a hosted service, reliance on hardware infrastructures, such as dedicated servers may be reduced. This ultimately saves the company money while offering greater flexibility and access.
Secure Software Support
At the heart of every Canon Business Solution is the uniFLOW software. Designed to save time and money by providing effective controls over entire print fleets, a uniFLOW solution can be built from several different components depending on specific business needs. It can be scaled up as the organisation grows and can be integrated with existing software.
To support BYOD strategies, uniFLOW offers one central platform for all PC-based and mobile print requirements, offering businesses of all sizes the ability to cost-effectively and securely link mobile workers, contractors and even visitors to their print network. It supports all Internet enabled mobile devices and enables jobs to be printed to any output devices. uniFLOW likewise allows conversion of email attachments as it supports over 300 file formats. It helps control document output by managing access to colour printing and enhancing document security. Further, it helps track costs by monitoring usage, savings and environmental impact with clear reporting, and by accurately allocating costs to appropriate cost centres.
In Support of BYOD and the Future
As the practise of BYOD gains momentum worldwide, it is crucial to note that technology is moving along with it. With advances that address security, quality and reliability issues, soon more people can be more at ease with the usage of personal mobile devices in the work place. Canon, with its various products, has long understood the values that BYOD brings to businesses. By further developing solutions that make BYOD easier and safer, Canon continues to Think Big for the future. A future of greater connectivity, enhanced productivity, and heightened information sharing and collaboration, it is a future that all businesses are sure to thrive in.