Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) has been called many things: a trend, an IT manager’s nightmare, a revolution. But recent data may suggest that “inevitable” may be the most appropriate word. As corporate data shifts to online database software, employees are able to enjoy the convenience of hardware agnosticism with the added bonus of being able to bring their own devices and productivity tools to work with them.

As the infographic showcases, the majority (80 percent) of employees already use personal technology for business purposes. However, only 53 percent of organizations officially condone BYOD. While this represents a significant disparity between policies and practices, the difference is expected to become smaller as organizations increasingly turn to BYOD solutions approaching 2017, by which time two-thirds of enterprises are expected to implement BYOD.

BYOD requires some extra focus on device management, since corporate data must still be protected even as workers use their own devices to access it. However, employees aren’t the only ones who stand to gain from corporate BYOD acceptance. Fifty-one percent of executives believe BYOD increases employee creativity, while another 47 percent said it increases productivity. The majority of businesses (73 percent) noted an increase in overall efficiency after adopting a BYOD program, suggesting that the benefits can outweigh risks when BYOD is successfully managed.

BYOD changes the way workers access corporate data and the way that companies must protect their digital assets. But the risks can be mitigated and the rewards are both tangible and quantifiable.

It is easy to imagine scenarios in which both workers and their companies can benefit – from the sales representative who has access to custom CRM solutions from his or her iPad to the marketer who has a “eureka” moment in the middle of the night and can immediately pull up data from the company’s latest survey to create ideas for the brand’s next advertising campaign.