The Benefits and Threats of BYOD in a SME Enterprise

Abstract:

In today's current economic climate, companies are always looking for innovative ways to help in
their enterprises’ business processes. Companies try to adopt new technological trends in order to
improve their business in terms of both performance and efficiency, so that they can keep up with
the market competition. One of the latest trends is “Bring your own Device” (BYOD). Instead of
companies having to provide the required hardware/software to its employees, by adopting BYOD
policies, employees are allowed to use their own computers or smart phones at work. Since they are
already acquainted with how these devices work, they are inclined to be more productive. The bene-
fits of this lead to higher work satisfaction, and can also help shift some of the costs to the user,
which enhances the cost-efficiency of the business.
In order to facilitate this, policies have to be drawn up in order to protect the company’s assets and
to provide guidelines. However, when Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SME's) try to implement
policies and guidelines for BYOD, it becomes more difficult as they usually do not have a dedicated IT
Security department to assist them. The question that needs to be answered is how the risks me n-
tioned can be reduced to acceptable levels, in order to support a secure adoption of BYOD in a SME
environment.
This thesis presents a systematic literature review (SLR) of published research articles concerning
Bring your Own Device in order try to answer this question.