Hughes Helps Companies Regain Control with BYOD

At Hughes we know that businesses are increasingly turning to bring-your-own-device (BYOD) practices in order to gain advantages in cost and productivity. Staff are often more comfortable working on their own devices and may be more likely to continue work after hours, for example, and it can also reduce strain on laptops and tablets provided by the company

However, we’re also familiar with the many challenges that can arise when pursuing BYOD. As more devices are used, for example, cloud-based applications for payments, accounting, stock control, CRM or ERP can become hopelessly sluggish.

This is because a greater load on bandwidth slows down the use of essential applications, which is too often responded with by purchasing more capacity, which can quickly become very costly. But with the right tools and expertise, organisations can quickly regain control.

As a managed services provider, Hughes enables companies to reduce excessive bandwidth use through a process of scoping, assessment, gatekeeping and throttling.

One of the contributors to the issue is that once employees have their own devices at work, the corporate connection is likely to be used for a number of purposes that can quickly eat up bandwidth.

Employees could be using it to update their software or for applications that help them work better. Others may use bandwidth-hungry applications such as YouTube or other streaming services or even download films and games over the corporate network.

Many businesses lack a clear picture of the amount of bandwidth their own applications use or which applications are running at any one time. Yet the BYOD phenomenon goes beyond employees.

In retail, for instance, the growing volume of customers using in-store Wi-Fi can greatly hamper connections during peak periods – so much so that retailers may find their mobile PoS technology barely keeping up with customers and employees. Peaks in Wi-Fi use can even slow down the local area network and affect fixed PoS equipment.

Hughes uses its expertise and objectivity to address all of these problems. First we conduct site surveys to determine what is running across a network, allowing you to determine which applications are important and who should be using them.

Applications that are used frequently or require regular log-ins and downloading may not be best suited to the cloud, whereas an application used less frequently should ideally be stored there.

Once we have conducted a measured assessment and established the top priorities, devices can monitor and measure the use of applications like Twitter and Facebook and control when they can be used or even turn them off completely.

In the case of Wi-Fi access, devices can control levels of use, whether by employees or customers’ smartphones. This requires expertise and a full assessment, as blocking access is considerably easier than throttling bandwidth.

Throttling on connectivity can result in end-point devices using more processing power and if not properly managed slow them down.

When facing the increasing pressures on bandwidth from BYOD and the growing use of cloud applications, businesses do not automatically have to invest in more costly bandwidth.

Instead of being overwhelmed and setting aside more resources for a costly quick-fix, organisations can use managed services expertise to reduce costs and give themselves the more long-term and robust solution that only a managed services provider like Hughes can provide.