The BYOD Trend

Bring Your Own Device or BYOD is one of the most talked about trend last year. Basically, the trend calls for the attention of both the corporation and employees to utilise what they have on hand. In BYOD, employees are given the freedom to bring their devices may it be smartphone, laptops or tablets to their office and use those personally owned gadgets to access the company’s applications such as documents, printers, scanners, etc. The trend boomed last year as it has garnered a growing attention in the world of information technology. In fact, some advantages and disadvantages were laid down the table as the trend continues to grow.

ADVANTAGES OF FOLLOWING THE BYOD TREND

1. Lower cost for corporations. BYOD generally attracts the employees to bring their preferred devices to work. This has implies a positive effect to companies because purchasing a significant amount of costly equipment will not be regarded as vital. And since employees use their own personal devices, they are expected to take extra care of the gadgets. Sometimes, breakages and wastage occurs because people do not regard the company’s properties as important.
2. More flexibility for employees. Since employees will be given the freedom to access their files using their own gadgets, the works that need to be done will not only be confined in offices. For this reason and another, employees enjoy more their work because they are not forced to use corporate-issued devices which are most of the time, not their preference. Some employees tend to be more productive when they use their own devices because they like them so much that they had invested their own money in them.
3. Better standing for the business. Studies show that 44% of job hunters find companies more attractive when they follow the BYOD trend. A defined policy for the BYOD trend will surely fish top players in the industry. The trend will be advantageous if the company wants to win a person to take over their competition.

DISADVANTAGES OF BRINGING YOUR OWN DEVICE

1. The cost of the trend will be shouldered by the employees. Following the trend will create a dilemma for those employees who do not want to have a device that can be used to access company information even in mobile mode. You cannot expect everyone to have the same preferences. If you are an employee who does not throw much attention to technology, knowing that your company follows the trend will make you feel hanging. The gravity of the agony will be double when the company did not state that the cost will not be shouldered by them.
2. The security of the confidential files. It’s a general knowledge that companies can’t afford to lose their data. If you are the company owner, it’s quite understandable if you will have a little hesitation to give your companies the full freedom to access your company’s information even if they are out of the corporate vicinity. Negative thoughts such as leakage to the competitors and “What will happen when the employee decides to leave the company?” will surely arise.

CONSIDERATIONS WHEN IMPLEMENTING THE BYOD TREND

1. A strong policy. Although given the freedom the access to company’s confidential files even in mobile mode, employees should still follow a set of rules to ensure that the company’s code of conduct will not be violated.
2. An established access. When implementing the trend, IT managers should be strict when giving access to employees. The access should be tailor-fitted to what the job description of the employee. To outline which access should be given to an employee, the question of “Who needs what and for what?” should be answered.
3. The right management tools. Data should still be controlled whenever files are being accessed on mobile. IT managers should configure the network access of the users by providing an authentication. 

BYOD is a trend that should be utilised to positive use. Be sure that before implementing a trend in your own workplace, considerations and concerns were outlined first to avoid mistakes, data loss and information theft. BYOD is just one of the benefits that you can utilise when you decide to get the managed document services of Capita Document & Information Services. To know more about our other services, reach us through phone at 0800 313 4910. 

REDUCE YOUR OFFICE PRINTING COST

Assuming that you have 50 employees in your company and those 50 employees print a 3-page document at least every day, how much do you think do you spend on your digital printing cost? The numbers in the question is quite small if you are to analyse it vaguely, but if you are to really compute the cost that your company spend on printing, you would be shocked more than amazed to know that you are spending a lot on printing. What’s unfortunate is that most of the documents printed by your employees go to waste -- some print outs just contain a one liner text or a link from a printed webpage and some are documents that are totally irrelevant with what the company is doing.

                                   

Giving your employees the freedom to print freely and to print whatever they want is not really unacceptable as long as they also know how to print economically.

TIPS TO PRINT ECONOMICALLY

Printing is one activity that you cannot avoid completely in an office. Employees use documents in their daily reports, presentations and proposals. Printing makes the lives of the employees easier. However, employees must also know how to fully utilise printing to their advantage.

• Print in “draft” mode whenever possible. Draft mode is a setting that can be used when printing any Microsoft Office software. Draft mode works by printing selected dots from the matrix of the document if it were to be printed in normal mode. When a document is printed in draft mode, the document will appear to be lighter and dottier but still, you can perfectly read the text and recognize the images that are printed. And since draft mode only select dots from the matrix of the document; it increases the print speed too.

• Print in duplex or multiple. You can cut off your company’s printing cost through printing on both sides of the pages or by printing multiple pages on one paper. You can do one of these techniques or you can do both. Printing in duplex or multiple is especially useful when printing Microsoft Powerpoint presentations.

• Use print preview and shrink to fit when printing. Aside from printing in draft mode and printing in duplex or multiple, you can also use print preview and shrink to fit to cut down on your printing cost. Before printing anything, preview the document and see how it will look on paper by using the print preview button. You can choose to adjust the font size of your document’s text or you can add spaces to the paragraphs to make your document more presentable.

Avoid wasting valuable ink and learn how to reduce your printing cost. However, if you feel that the printing cost of your company is not moving according to the way you wanted it to be, then you must probably seek for the help of the experts.

 

Capita Document Information Services offers managed document services for companies who want to cut down on their printing cost. To know more about how Capita can help your bu

Advantages of Managed Document Services

Every company is always looking for a new way or method to cut the overall business costs. In an office setting, document-related output is the most common factor that greatly adds to the total business costs. This is where document solutions come in. One of the most effective ways to reduce the amount of expenditure is by maximising the value of various functions at the office such as printing, copying and scanning of documents.

Although MPS or managed print services have been introduced to the industry not so long ago, there is still an even greater document strategy that is far superior and this is known as MDS or managed document services.

What is MDS or Managed Document Services?

Compared to MPS or managed print services, which is focused only on output, MDS or managed document services aim to provide a holistic approach on the whole document output process. What does this mean? Managed document services are not only looking into the output, but they are making sure that every step of the process is maximised - starting from the capturing of data, up until the  archiving of information, managed document services take care of it all.

This unique document technology is a perfect strategy that makes it possible for offices to reduce output costs of about 30% to 40% in total.  This is a considerable cost savings that can definitely affect the business positively.

How does Managed Document Services work?

A managed document services provider will first make an assessment of the current existing solution. After this step, the service provider will come up with figures on the total costs of company ownership and production. From here, a tailored plan for the business will be laid out to address which issue needs to be attended to right away.

Additional benefits of Managed Document Services

Aside from the big savings that could be achieved from this document technology, managed document services have more benefits to offer a business and these include:

• The probability of lowering the present Total Cost of Ownership or what is also known as TCO.

• A very positive impact on the environment as there will be fewer devices or machines that will be used at the office.

• A much improved document strategy, from a simple output-based strategy, to a more holistic document solutions approach, starting from scanning, copying and finally printing.

Managed document services is a great way to not only reduce business costs, it is also effective in increasing the quality and efficiency of work in the office setup.