BYOD: cost and capability

Pro

As trends go, the consumerisation of IT is one of the most significant and it is showing no signs of slowing. An ever growing percentage of the public is carrying around smart phones and tablet PCs that outclass the desktop PCs of barely a decade ago.

Meanwhile the growth of cloud computing and remotely delivered apps is making these devices ever more attractive in the workplace.

According to an eircom Household Sentiment Survey conducted in March of this year, more than 50% of mobile phone users, or 1.6 million people, in Ireland now own a smart phone, a figure up from 39% in just six months.

In addition, the survey found that the number of people who own a tablet computer doubled in six months and is projected to hit 1.2 million people by the end of 2013. These smart phone and tablet owners are increasingly taking their devices to work with them, but while this bring your own device (BYOD) trend can, on the face of it, offer money-saving opportunities to companies, there are other issues to consider.

Issue and opportunity
"BYOD is an issue for a lot of companies but also an opportunity, depending on how they look at it," said John Giblin, propositions manager with BT Ireland.

"By offering your employees an opportunity to use devices which are in many cases far more powerful than the corporate devices in the workplace, you’ll increase your productivity. But it shouldn’t be looked at purely as a cost saving measure. Initially it was billed as a way to make use of the technology employees were likely bringing to work anyway, but I think that’s a limited way of looking at it. It’s better to think of it as a way to increase productivity and make the company more attractive to prospective talent and staff who increasingly expect to be able to use these applications in their day to day work."

Giblin said that regardless of who purchases or owns a device that is used in a corporate setting or what it is used for, there will still be a bill to be paid.

"When you let people bring in their own devices, somebody somewhere still has to pick up the bill for supporting them. In many cases it would be hard to make the argument that facilitating BYOD is automatically a cost saver. All that’s happening is that you’re moving the cost from providing the hardware to providing the support and helpdesk needed to make the equipment work. You also have to increase your security spend and invest in the technology necessary to manage multiple different devices," he said.

Support expectations
A further complication that might not be immediately apparent to an organisation thinking of sanctioning a BYOD project is the expectations it creates in terms of support according to John Casey, sales director with Trilogy Technologies.

"Companies which implement BYOD typically find that the IT department ends up being responsible for the device not just when it’s on the network, but out of hours as well. When people go home they expect the same level of service, and the reality is that if you take this on, you’re letting yourself in for support problems," he said.

However that does not mean companies should not allow it-rather it is a question of managing the process.

"The technology is there to deliver line of business and sales applications to mobile devices, whether it be with Citrix or something else, and typically there’s not too much of a data protection problem because these systems usually don’t store data on the device. Allowing it can involve losing a certain amount of control of the data that you have on your network. But that’s not new-laptops brought that problem when they first came on the scene. It’s just another reskilling problem for companies, albeit one that is hard to keep up with it," said Casey.

Size matters
He believes that the popularity of BYOD with Irish companies depends heavily on their size, but surprisingly, it is not the smaller, nimbler companies that are taking most advantage of the trend.

"It’s more prevalent at an enterprise level. When you come down to the mid-market, say organisations with 75 to 100 users, it’s not as common as you’d think just yet. Yes, people are using smart phones and smart devices to access email and so on, but as regards using them on their desks as their device of choice, we’re not really seeing that yet," he said.

"It is slowly creeping in, and in particular you can’t underestimate the role the iPad has played in this, as more and more people use them for presentations and so on."

Guido Marchetti of MJ Flood believes that it is foolish of companies not to take advantage of the technology that is all around them. But he warns that it has to be done right if non-standard devices are to integrate comfortably with the network.

Demarcation
"Ten years ago, if I asked you where your best PC was, you would have said in work. But today people will say it’s at home and nine times out of ten it’s a tablet device. It’s attractive to both the employee and the employer to get the most out of that capacity, but getting access to the productivity they offer while plugging them into the services you need them to have isn’t straight forward. It needs to be prepared for," he said.

"You also need to have a strategy to enable this, with clear lines of demarcation in terms of where business interests lie, where personal interests lie and how to differentiate them."

MJ Flood is a multi-vendor company but is best known as an Apple dealer. According to Marchetti, that the mass adoption of the iPad and iOS has been a key factor in the demand for BYOD in Ireland.

"The typical scenario is that senior management bring their iPads into the workplace and pretty much demand that the IT department makes them work. But the range of things those devices are being used for has steadily grown-they used to be boardroom toys, but they’ve grown to be much more," he said.

"For many people now, if you took their iPhone away from them they’d have more of a problem then if you took their PC away from them. We’re seeing more of this right the way from SMEs up to enterprise level."

BYOD reality
Given the proliferation of smart devices in Ireland, most companies already have a BYOD situation in the workplace, even if they do not recognise it formally. For companies in this situation looking to regularise what is currently a potentially dangerous situation, Marchetti believes the first step is recognising that BYOD is not a technological issue at all-getting the most out of these devices is actually a matter of policy and procedure.

"First you have to have an acceptable usage policy, and clear lines of demarcation. Who owns the device? Who owns the data on the device? Depending on the device it can be impossible to create a domain profile which sections off data to make it possible to safeguard corporate data separately to personal data," he said.

"Windows 8 is changing this a little, but with iOS and Android devices, traditional controllers like active directory won’t work. What you can do is introduce a multi-device management (MDM) tool and couple it with an acceptable usage policy document, and from that you can enforce strict policies."

Using MDM tools, it is possible to geofence business sites so that certain applications and device features will not work in that location.

App lock-out
"For example you can lock out social applications as soon as someone walks into the building and connects to Wi-Fi. We use Citrix Zen mobile to do this-it requires some consultancy and delivery, but it’s not hard to do. You can turn off cameras, Bluetooth functionality and more," said Marchetti.

According to Declan Parker, principal solution owner with Fujitsu Ireland, companies that don’t currently have BYOD policies in place should get them, in order to limit their exposure to potential problems and increase productivity.

"Whether you have policies or strategies in place to handle them, the reality is that your staff are already carrying smart devices into the workplace. People tend to want to work the way that’s easiest for them, and if a device they already own can make their job easier, then they’ll use it whether you’ve sanctioned it or not," he said.

"If a company finds that staff are using their own devices for work purposes then they should take a serious look at the situation, because they have responsibility around protecting corporate data. Putting in place a good management system will give them the ability to manage these so called ‘end point’ devices and put in place policies that provide good governance and appropriate stewardship of the corporate data."

"We can remotely protect devices, prevent them being jail broken or hacked, remotely wipe them if needed and prevent unauthorised installation of applications that might open security holes into the corporate network. But none of that matters if the organisation is in denial about the problem or just hasn’t given the matter any thought."

Parker reiterates that managing a BYOD system is as much about company culture as it is technology.

Culture shift
"The question we’re asked by customers is how are they going to get some value out of BYOD. The technology is proven-for example, we have a cloud-based mobile device management system that’s widely used-so really that’s not the issue. It’s the business goals that are more important, and the challenges presented to do with policies and problems that HR doesn’t’ anticipate until they arise," he said.

"Ultimately who owns the device if it’s lost-who retains the right to wipe the data on it? Does the user understand that the policies that are there protect the company and its data? Does the BYOD scheme apply to all staff? Should it be limited to executives, middle management, salespeople and so on? These are the kinds of questions that should be asked."

Microsoft sees BYOD as merely one part of the larger issue of the consumerisation of IT, and while that larger trend shows no signs of slowing down, Patrick Ward, Windows business group leader for Microsoft Ireland, thinks BYOD has yet to really take off.

"For now, users bringing in devices that they purchased and getting access to corporate data tends to be limited to senior management teams with their tablets," he said. "But the consumerisation of IT is having a huge influence in organisations. End-users are having increasing say over end user computing, and it’s no longer at the sole discretion of the IT department. BYOD is coming about as a result of that."

The introduction of Windows 8 last year has made it significantly easier for organisations running Microsoft systems to manage phones and tablets.

Tablet PCs
"Until Windows 8 arrived, if you wanted to allow tablets then you had no option but to introduce a new ecosystem with all the training and management challenges that comes with that. Now you can introduce tablets that are PCs, and are therefore managed as PCs with the existing familiar trusted technology at the back end," said Ward.

"The thing to remember in this is that the average end user is now more than used to having access to smart devices, cloud-delivered applications, game consoles and so on. They have multiple devices at home, and with younger people it’s literally the case that they haven’t known a world without the Internet. That’s the user the IT department is dealing with."

Ultimately Ward believes that effectively managing BYOD is a matter of managing and user expectations. "The challenge is to balance those expectations next to the organisation’s expectations. It’s about giving flexibility and encouraging productivity gains while also mitigating any security risk or compliance obligations," he said.

Read More: Bring Your Own