Is BYOD the
Inevitable Future of
Managing a Mobile
Workforce?
A white paper written by Steve
Downton and commissioned by
Solarvista
31/10/13 V 1
Contents
Executive Summary
4
So What Actually Is BYOD?
6
Why is BYOD Proving So Popular?
8
What are the Pros and Cons?
10
Advantages
10
Disadvantages
10
The Future of BYOD
13
In Conclusion
16
Appendices
18
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Executive Summary
The BYOD debate is one that has received much coverage in recent months with some in the service sector as well as other industries arguing that BYOD is the only way forward for businesses looking to compete effectively and offer the most efficient customer service and increased employee satisfaction. But what is BYOD? What is the impact on the business, the workers, and the customers? This white paper will aim to clearly discuss the implications of BYOD, the security issues that it may instigate and also the benefits it may provide in specific relation to Service Businesses and their Mobile Workers.
Like any business process, Bring Your Own Device is about weighing the advantages against the complications and working out whether it is indeed the best thing for you and your business. In order to do this, it is important to have all the facts and to discuss the pros and cons of the argument thoroughly and in detail; allowing you to address any possible issues upfront. (Bradley, 2011).
The Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) phenomenon is entrenched across geographies, vertical markets, job roles, and companies of all sizes. Absalom (2013)
A complete move to Bring Your Own Device is not going to be right for every
business in every service sector, but a lot of businesses may already be partaking in some kind of BYOD scheme without even realising. For example, if employees have access to company emails on their personal mobile phone or tablet or another device then this is, in effect, BYOD. In fact research has found that globally 60% of full-time employees use BYOD to some extent. (Gabriel, 2013)
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So What Actually Is
BYOD?
So What Actually Is BYOD?
Simply, Bring Your Own Device refers to employees having the ability to connect their own technical devices such as smart phones, laptops and tablets to the company’s network instead of using a device owned by the company. Recent years have seen an influx of workers bringing their own personal devices into their work environment and using them in their everyday jobs (Millard, 2011).
In fact, 95% of employees have used their own device in work (Gens et al, 2011) and the majority already use their own personal device for a variety of work-related tasks, including communication, content creation and admin (Ellis et al, 2012).
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Why is BYOD
Why is BYOD Proving So
Popular?
The main surge in BYOD, it seems, has come from the recent technical advances in consumer markets, with smartphones and tablet computers being the driving force behind the seismic shift that has taken place in the last couple of years. Consumers are more than willing, even expecting, to have the latest device and this device is now more connected than ever to every part of their social and working lives.
It used to be that IT departments drove technology, but that has changed
dramatically in recent years. The consumerization of IT revolution -- sparked by the iPhone -- has shifted the IT culture so that the users are the ones getting the latest, cutting edge technologies first, and they want to bring those devices to work.
Bradley (2011)
The developments in cloud-based technologies, combined with the popularity of social media and the influx of the younger Generation Ys into the current workforce have all contributed to a change in attitude to work. This results in very different work paradigms (Millard, 2011). For example, the notion of working “9 to 5” is reminiscent of a bygone era. Most people would now readily admit that they check emails from home, or accept work phone calls outside their official working hours.
Another reason that Bringing Your Own Device seems to have become more popular in the last 18 months is that employees can combine their work and social lives so that both are run using a single device. This addresses issues some might face of getting the right home / work balance and ensures that employees are comfortable using the device in question and familiar with its capabilities.
Therefore, it seems that BYOD is, in fact, an employee-led trend and therefore is not likely to go away anytime soon.
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What are the Pros
and Cons?
What are the Pros and Cons?
There are a number of advantages to BYOD for both the user of the device and the company employing that user. These tend to be fairly evident and well publicised. However, the other side of the debate – the potential pitfalls that a company may face because of BYOD – tend to be less obvious.
Below are some examples, but not an exhaustive list, both from the user and business perspective.
Advantages
• Personal choiceRather than having to conform to use the same device as all other users in the business, employees are able to select a device based on their own personal preference and previous device experience. It would be reasonable to assume that the user would therefore be significantly happier using this device than they would have been if one was enforced by their employer.
• Better work life balance
Using a single device for both their work and personal lives enables users a greater flexibility in how they deal with the pressures and expectations of each.
• Improved productivity
Increased familiarity with the device and its capabilities results in the user being more proficient with it and therefore much less likely to have problems or delays in
completing their work. This obviously results in a benefit for the business also. • No cost for equipment
The initial purchase, plus any future upgrades or replacements and all ongoing maintenance costs become the user’s responsibility and not the business’s. • Decreased support and training costs
In theory, by using a device of their own choice and that the user is familiar with there should be less need for the business to offer help-desk support for that device.
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• “Always available”
By using a single device most users will be always available and the boundaries between home and work is likely to become blurred as users feel it more necessary to check messages and emails when they might not necessarily have on a separate device.
• Loss, theft or damage
There are two parts to this disadvantage. Firstly, if a user loses a device or it is damaged or stolen it is their responsibility to replace it and so there are financial implications for them, whereby previously they might have received a replacement paid for by the company. More importantly to the business are the data leaks or information loss that may be a consequence of loss or theft of a device. Weak passwords could render the data accessible, which in turn has implications both internally and with auditors. Also, there is a question of whether a business is able to “remote wipe” the device in these types of scenarios.
58% of IT security and audit experts view employee-owned devices as a security risk to the enterprise.
ISACA (2011)
• Information and network security
One of the key issues with BYOD is how to ensure all data and information is accessed and transferred securely. This adds pressure to the IT department to manage a larger variety of devices and ensure that security across all options is maintained.
• Increased support costs
Whilst in theory a device chosen by the user should need less help desk support, there is the possibility that there will come a time when they do need assistance. This could bring increased costs as there would potentially be the need to support a large variety of devices on a number of different platforms. Also, there is also the potential that problems may arise with company software if these are not able to fully support all platforms and devices.
It is also worth noting that there could be a clear advantage within a service business for all Mobile Workers having the same device. This would include consistency from the customer’s perspective in the service they get, but also there may be more functionality on a particular device than others and incompatible devices may not easily be able to share documents and other information. This could lead to inefficiencies within the business that would need to be addressed to ensure it doesn’t affect customer service or costs.
The Future of
BYOD
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The Future of BYOD
BYOD represents the tipping point from corporate-led IT to consumer-driven IT; corporate IT now significantly lags behind the consumer market (Millard, 2011) and this has had a dramatic effect on the desire of employees to use their own devices at work. It is a trend that is set to continue throughout 2013 and beyond.
Employees and mobile workers have become ‘tech-savvy’, demanding the same innovation and high functionality technology in their work-lives as they do in their home-lives. Therefore, if their work technology is significantly slower, heavier and in their eyes less desirable, then they will be more likely to use their own preferred device to get the job done (Millard, 2011). In fact, research suggests that by 2018 70% of mobile professionals will conduct their work on personal devices (Orans, 2012).
And research by Forrester (Pelino et al 2012) suggests that BYOD has not even reached its peak yet. Their research “estimates that 258 million workers around the world choose their own laptops and 129 million buy their own smartphones”. It also proposes that with the surge in demand for tablets, this is likely to be the next focus for the BYOD debate.
Personal preference, individual choice and the desire not to be laden with multiple devices for home and work are all driving this trend.
Millard (2011)
A study of UK employees (Virgin Media Business, 2011) suggested that 63% of people wanted to have one device for both home and work, and Absalom’s research echoes this sentiment in 2013; showing that the majority of respondents prefer the idea of a single device rather than carrying around both a corporate and personal device.
In fact there have been a number of developments in technology that have tried to address this issue, whilst maintaining a separation ‘barrier’ between personal and business. Blackberry developers have designed a phone, whereby there are two sim card slots and the business part of the phone, with a ‘work perimeter’ that is kept an entirely separate entity to the personal section, but accessible through the same device for convenience.
However, one of the main problems with BYOD, is that companies are unaware that their employees are doing it and so are unable to fully assess the risks and take the necessary precautions to keep their data and networks safe and secure.
In 2011, Gens et al conducted a survey in which 95% of workers who responded admitted to having used technology that they purchased themselves for work
also admitted that they generally don’t tell their employer, neither the procurement nor IT departments, that they’re using it.
In fact almost 80% of BYOD activity remains unmanaged; with no BYOD policy in place, but employees use their device anyway (Absalom, 2013). To combat this, more than half of North American and European companies are developing BYOD programs (Pelino et al, 2012).
It is this lack of knowledge and control that can potentially cause problems for businesses. Business rules around BYOD need to be set in a policy in the future, signed by users, in order to ensure that everyone knows where they stand.
A company policy is an important part of the future of BYOD and it needs to address all issues that may arise. For example results of a lost or stolen phone; will the company have the right to remote wipe the device, including any personal data, should the device be considered compromised? Who is responsible for cost of replacement? How will the device connect to internal networks? Does the device need a VPN or kind of Firewall to ensure security? If the employee leaves, can the company remove data that may be stored on the phone? Can access to internal networks be revoked should it be required?
All of these questions and more must be answered prior to any personal device being used in order to ensure that everyone is clear and prepared for the worst should a problem arise.
Consumerization has had a significant impact on enterprise mobility in 2012 and will continue to do so. The consumer mobile device market is expected to continue its rapid growth… and BYOD activity will grow with it.
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In Conclusion
Over the last couple of years, these devices have become integrated into everyday life for most people as result of the ‘always on’ nature of social media and the 24/7 online world. With the lightning speed at which technology is progressing it is maybe neither cost-effective nor practical for businesses to update their employees’
technological devices as often as both the company and the employee might wish. Therefore, Bring Your Own Device has become the natural solution to this problem.
One size increasingly doesn’t fit all in terms of tools and technologies for work. The challenge is for the IT department to ensure their business is secure.
Millard (2011)
However, there are a number of key considerations when implementing any kind of BYOD scheme in the workplace. Most notably these are around security; of your company’s data and networks, of access to your systems and around confidentiality. Also, there are a number of functionality and cost implications worth noting. If you need particular functionality from your devices that is only available on expensive corporate hardware, then BYOD may not even be applicable at the moment.
There are big challenges ahead in ensuring the business remains secure whilst also adopting working methods that are becoming ever more prevalent and popular. It is important to know that BYOD, according to the experts, isn’t going anywhere.
Therefore there should be no rush to implement it without giving proper consideration to all the ways it will affect your business, your employees and ultimately your
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Appendices
Absalom, 2013
Bring Your Own Device Drives the Evolution of Enterprise Mobility
By: Richard Absalom
Taken from Trends to Watch 2013, by Ovum
Bradley, December 2011
Pros and Cons of Bringing Your Own Device to Work
By: Tony Bradley of PC World
Ellis et al, June 2012
BYOD: From Company-Issued to Employee-Owned Devices
By: Lisa Ellis, Jeffrey Saret and Peter Weed
Taken from A New Era of Personalised Computing, Chapter Four, by McKinsey and Company
Gabriel, January 2013
No BYOD Policy? Time to Grasp the Nettle
By: Chris Gabriel of Logicalis Group
Gartner, December 2009
Gartner’s Top Predictions for IT Organisations and Users, 2010 and Beyond: A New Balance
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By: Frank Gens, Danielle Levitas, and Rebecca Segal of IDC / Unisys
ISACA, May 2011
IT Risk / Reward Barometer
By: Information Systems Audit and Control Association
Millard, 2011
Workshift: The future of the Office
By: Dr J Millard with Steve Gillies of BT Business
Orans, August 2012
Securing BYOD with Network Access Control, a Case Study
By: Lawrence Orans of Gartner
Pelino et al, October 2012
Building the Business Case for a Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) Program
By: Michele Pelino, with Benjamin Gray, Christian Kane, Laura Koetzle, Christopher Voce, Thayer Frechette of Forrester
Virgin Media, 2011
Next Generation Working Practices, a White Paper
Other quotations taken from Customer Case Studies by Solarvista Software Ltd.
More information
Information about this publication can be found at www.solarvista.com or please send any enquiries by email to [email protected].
