The real trade-off
BYOD saves on hardware and lets people use the phone they already carry. Company-managed devices cost more but give you control. The question isn’t really which is better. It is which devices and which data need which level of control.
Most of our clients end up with a mix: company laptops for daily work, and personal phones allowed for email and Teams with protections around the company data.
Protecting company data on personal phones
You don’t need to manage an employee’s entire phone to protect company data on it. App protection policies in Microsoft Intune apply rules to work apps such as Outlook, Teams and OneDrive: a PIN to open them, no copying work data into personal apps, and a remote wipe of just the work data when someone leaves.
For Apple devices, user enrollment through Jamf or Intune creates a separate, managed space for work accounts and apps, while personal data stays private and outside IT’s reach.
When to require company-managed devices
A company-owned, managed device is the better choice when:
- Someone works with client, financial or health data most of the day.
- Your cyber-insurance policy or a client contract requires managed, encrypted devices.
- The device needs specialist software, VPN access or local files.
- You need to prove every device is patched and protected.
- You want a clean hand-back when people leave.
Making it a policy, not a guess
A written device policy tells staff what they can use, what the company can and can’t see, and what happens when they leave. We help write it, then enforce it with Conditional Access so only compliant devices, company-owned or personal, can reach company email and files. We manage Windows PCs with Intune and Apple devices with Jamf or Intune, and protect every company laptop with EDR and encryption.