• BYOD, or Bring Your Own Device, is the practice of allowing employees of an organization to use their own smartphones, or tablets for work purposes.
• COPE, or corporate-owned personally-enabled, is a model in which organizations provide employees with mobile devices, and allow them to use the devices for their personal use as well.
• CYOD, or choose your own device, is the practice of providing a selection of pre-approved devices for your employees to choose from to use in and out of the office.

While many companies started with BYOD, the current trend is shifting to COPE devices because of the concerns over security, legal issues related to control vs. user privacy, and IT compatibility. Employees with BYOD devices may be putting company data at increased risk.

A recent study by the Wall Street Journal Custom Studios and Symantec, Keeping Your Data Safe: Protecting Corporate Information in the Cloud, determined that 51-percent of employees think securing corporate data is the job of the company IT team rather than their own responsibility. The report also found:

• 79% of employees admit to engaging in risky behaviors—intentionally or unintentionally—that place corporate data at risk
• 48% of employees don’t think about security risks when transferring files or sharing documents over cloud-based services

As businesses think about making the shift from BYOD to supplying their own custom devices – either COPE or CYOD – it’s important to understand the advantages and disadvantages of the two strategies. Through years of experience customizing and supplying tablets for enterprise and education, Minno has identified the pros and cons of BYOD v company-supplied devices that should be considered when moving your business into the connected anytime, anywhere mobile environment.