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When it comes to enterprise mobility strategies, BYOD, CYOD, and COPE are the fastest growing trends in the enterprise sector, and they want to make sure their policies stay strong.
Device management and employee choice have become cornerstones of IT infrastructure.
So when it comes to enterprise mobility management and solutions, we have three main strategies: BYOD, CYOD, and COPE.
What is BYOD?
BYOD (short for Bring Your Own Device) is a rapidly evolving workplace trend that encourages employees to bring their own mobile devices (such as smartphones, laptops, or tablets) into the workplace to access organizational systems and data.
This practice is used by many organizations to reduce business costs and thereby increase productivity. BYOD is just one small part of a larger "consumerization of IT" movement, where consumers can bring their own hardware and software into their respective workplaces.
It gives employees the freedom to work on their own devices, choosing the apps and services that best meet their needs. However, employees should adhere to the company's BYOD policy to protect company data, as policy must always precede technology.
What is CYOD?
CYOD stands for "Choose Your Own Device". CYOD is an employee provisioning model similar to BYOD, but more like an alternative to BYOD, where employees can choose from a limited number of company-approved devices instead of carrying their personal devices.
Basically, a company or organization decides which devices its employees can choose by providing a list of pre-approved mobile devices. Compared to BYOD, this option is quite restrictive and provides organizations with a degree of control.
This allows them to limit the differences in the mobile devices to support while giving employees a degree of choice. It's more of a mutually beneficial endeavor that benefits both parties, employees, and the organization equally.
These devices are owned by the company and thus provide more flexibility in imposing restrictions on device usage.
What is COPE?
COPE stands for "Company Owned Personal Support". COPE is a business model, especially used in IT organizations, that encourages employees to use company-owned mobile devices, but at the same time gives them the freedom to make personal calls, send text messages, or install the apps they want.
Employees are free to mainly do what they want, but the organization still has administrative control over the device. It's a mobility plan, and it's a trade-off between work profile and personal use.
The balance is more on the organizational side when it comes to application management, security, and integration, but employees also have a degree of control over their personal use of devices. COPE recognizes that no one likes to carry two cell phones with them - one for personal use and one for work.
Differences between BYOD, CYOD, and COPE
Significance
– The acronym itself is self-explanatory. BYOD stands for "Bring Your Own Device," CYOD stands for "Choose Your Own Device," and COPE is short for "Corporate Owned Personal Enablement."
BYOD is an enterprise trend that encourages employees to bring personal mobile devices to the workplace; CYOD is an alternative to BYOD, allowing employees to choose from a limited number of pre-approved devices for their use on the organization's premises;
finally, COPE is a balance between work and personal use, where employees are free to do most of what they want, but the organization still has administrative control over the device.
Control
– With the BYOD model, employees are free to work on their personal devices, choosing the applications and services that best meet their needs. They can access selected company resources from their personal mobile devices, within the bounds of the company's BYOD policy.
Compared to BYOD, the CYOD model has considerable restrictions on employee freedom, giving organizations more control over which devices are allowed on the network.
On the other hand, COPE is a business model in which a company or entity purchases and provides computing resources and equipment to be provided to employees.
Cost
– BYOD is probably the most cost-effective staffing model, and it helps save the company a lot of money, along with significant savings in hardware spending and deployment costs.
CYOD also significantly reduces capital expenditures and hardware deployment costs, but research also shows that organizations spend 10 times more on hardware and software deployments than they spend on equipment acquisitions.
With COPE, the organization is solely responsible for monitoring and maintaining devices being released, which results in higher upfront and deployment costs.
Safety
– BYOD gives employees more freedom, but with freedom comes loopholes. BYOD does increase productivity, but it also brings a lot of security risks because it's a bit difficult to implement security on personal devices.
With CYOD, employees operate within company compliance security policies. CYOD also ensures that the latest versions of operating systems and applications are supported, and with security solutions in the company's hands, corporate data is virtually immune to potential security threats.
COPE provides greater control and authority over devices and how they are used, which means higher levels of security and fewer vulnerabilities.
Generalize
They all have their pros and cons, and which one is better for your organization depends largely on the size of your organization. For COPE, mobile devices are the responsibility of the organization, so strict monitoring and device management and security policies must be implemented, and devices must be kept up to date at all times.
COPE is a workaround for fully enterprise-owned devices that allow you to make calls, send text messages, or do whatever you want, but at the end of the day, the organization has full administrative control over the device. BYOD and CYOD are very similar staffing models that provide a degree of flexibility and control over devices, but also introduce some security risks to the IT infrastructure.
