Why startups like Another Number
Another Number is used widely by small business and startups. In one particular case, they’ve grown rapidly since launching and have several hundred employees in various roles, with the entire workforce using their personal mobile phones for work calls and messages.
They are not alone, and it’s easy to arrive in that situation.
You start life as a bunch of founders and early employees. You don’t have anyone with the time or inclination to manage non-essential IT issues, such as shopping around for mobile phone contracts or creating and future-proofing your BYOD policy; you’re all too busy doing your jobs. Before you know it you have 200 people using their personal mobile for work and you begin to grow concerned from an IT perspective.
Why is this an issue?
- How do you manage IT support if everyone is using a different device?
- To what extent do you provide support on personal mobiles?
- What happens if their phone is lost or stolen?
- How are they accessing company information and where?
- How do you handle breaches of company policy on mobile devices?
- How secure is customer data and communication on their device?
- How can they keep work and personal contacts and communications separate for GDPR purposes?
- Can you ensure that you retain customer data if an employee leaves your business?
- How do you stop people from being constantly ‘online and available’ when they don’t always need to be
The benefits of BYOD
- Cost-savings on hardware
- Employees pay for replacements, repairs and upgrades
- Staff have superior devices, often with unlimited minutes/data at their own cost
- Productivity increases when employees are happy with their devices
- BYOD supports smart and flexible working
- More people can become mobile, without the organisation investing in extra devices
- BYOD is scalable as an organisation grows, or mergers or acquisitions take place
How to manage BYOD
- Implement a strict, fair and clear policy as early as possible to protect the organisation, its employees and their contacts
- Ensure that access to the company network on personal devices is secure with strong passwords/PINs
- Require a certain level of ‘device competence’ or refuse support
- Use technology to provide a work number on personal devices so the company owns and manages the number
- Use a Mobile Application Management or Mobile Device Management service to manage and secure access to work applications
- Ensure that software is kept up to date by pushing out reminders by text/email
If you are looking for advice on how BYOD can work for your organisation contactus@thumbtel.com and we can tell you more about Another Number for Teams, an easy to deploy and cost-effective way of issuing work numbers to all employees on their chosen device. If you’re ready to give it a try, start a free trial for you and your team here.
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