Empowering End Users Implementing a win-win BYOD strategy

Empowering End Users

In an effort to increase end-user productivity and satisfaction, organizations are seeking strategies to enable employees to use their own devices in the workplace without negatively impacting network operations or security. The answer lies in the implementation of a model that assigns personas to end users to control access to the network and streamline support. The result is a user-centric infrastructure that enhances productivity and collaboration.

There was a time when the latest and greatest technology was too expensive to adopt outside of the workplace. That day is long gone. Today, most workers have a far more accessible and engaging experience with technology outside of the office than they do in the workplace. Affordable laptops, smartphones, tablets, wearables, and more give end users an expanse of content and functionality at their fingertips — wherever and whenever they want. It’s an experience that they’re increasingly demanding in the workplace as well.

Tech-savvy workers expect the devices they use for business to offer the same mobility, flexibility, and ease-of-use that they get from their personal devices. In the absence of employer-provided devices that offer this, many employees opt to use their personal devices in their business lives — whether or not their organizations know or explicitly approve. The result is a complex new set of challenges for IT departments charged with coordinating access, providing service, and maintaining security. Traditional IT service models aren’t nimble enough to accommodate Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) users. The sheer number and variety of devices make it incredibly time-consuming for IT to master support for all of them, not to mention securely integrate them into the infrastructure.

At the same time, end users have become accustomed to receiving training, answers, and technical support from dedicated specialists outside the organization who are extremely well-versed in the devices they support. When they can’t get the support they need from in-house IT specialists, end users turn to these responsive experts to answer their questions and solve their problems. The result is little-to-no coordination with corporate policies on access and security — and zero visibility in the C-suite with regard to what specific devices are accessing the organization’s network, to what benefit, and at what cost.

As the BYOD culture has gained traction, many organizations have responded with device-centric policies. Often, these consist of developing a series of customized fixes to accommodate individual devices in specific circumstances. This approach is merely a temporary means to an end and results in higher costs overall. However, the organizations that experience the most success integrating the needs of BYOD workers with those of traditional enterprise technology users have adopted a user-centric approach.

Keeping Pace

with Technology

According to Microsoft, the average age of today’s enterprise PC is 4.4 years—close to what many experts consider to be a 5-year maximum life for computers1_{. This is}

one reason employees prefer to bring their own, more advanced devices into the workplace.

End Users Rule

The “empowered user” model presents a number of specific challenges for IT. First and foremost is the need to establish which employees are authorized to access what content. When determining permissions for specific employees, IT needs to strike a balance between IT control, end-user enablement, business needs, and security requirements. If too many controls are in place, workers will either go around them or simply leave. But if there aren’t enough controls, corporate assets such as intellectual property, network stability, and reputation are put at risk. As a result, the role of IT is rapidly shifting away from “command and control” to “secure and enable.” End users own and regularly use three to five separate devices. On those devices, they have installed an average of 120 applications, of which they typically use 35 each week. Multiply those figures by the number of employees in even a mid-size company, and you begin to see the formidable task facing the IT department. Not only must they master the operational and service needs of all of these devices and applications, but they also need to keep them working securely within the confines of the enterprise infrastructure. Of course, even as these challenges mount, IT budgets continue to shrink. So, this enhanced end-user experience must be provided without adding IT headcount or incurring other costs.

Finally, end-user enablement must occur within a framework that generates metrics that management can use to assess the cost-to-benefit ratio of supporting a myriad of devices. If a legitimate business case can’t be made to justify the added risk of allowing employees to access the organization’s infrastructure with their own devices, the BYOD model will not receive C-level management support.

In order for BYOD to succeed, it is essential to engage end users and challenge the status quo: listen to their needs, monitor their experiences, and leverage that data to drive change. The checklist approach IT teams frequently use to tackle projects is unlikely to yield solutions or processes that dynamically capture evolving end-user requirements and measure performance.

Taken together, these challenges build a case for support technologies that are easy to implement, use, and scale for future growth. The ultimate goal is to move away from quick-fix point services and toward a sustainable foundation of tightly integrated people, processes, and technologies.

Evolve or Pay

the Price

Forward-thinking IT departments are shifting from a traditional “command and control” model to “secure and enable.” Instead of selecting devices that fit IT’s specifications and insisting that employees adapt to them, IT is adopting a user-centric approach that puts the end-user experience front and center. This level of flexibility can play a significant role in the organization’s efforts to retain high-performing, tech-savvy employees.

Personalize and Mobilize

Gartner estimates that more than half of all business organizations will have BYOD policies in place by 20162 _{. Given this statistic, the sooner IT departments embrace the BYOD paradigm, the sooner}

they’ll be able to provide end users with the experience they demand without sacrificing security and visibility. Adopting a user-centric model is the most logical way to give end users what they want. But, how do you achieve this without adding new layers of complexity, spend, and risk? Many organizations have found success by implementing the following four-step plan.

Step 1. Establish Personas

Creating and assigning personas isn’t a new concept. But it’s one that can be deceptively difficult to deploy, particularly when you factor in the extra layer of complexity introduced by the BYOD movement. However, it’s precisely because of that complexity that personas — provided they’re done right — can do so much to streamline operations and increase the efficiency of IT operations. By identifying and assigning the right employee characteristics — including job responsibilities, access levels, and approved applications and subscriptions — device management can be simplified through codification and automation. This enables IT to create uniform processes to govern access, usage, and support.

Step 2. Create Persona-based Portals

Going a step further and creating unique, personalized portals connected to each persona provides entrance points for quick, easy access to only those applications, processes, and content that are relevant to each end user. Today’s empowered end users seek simplification, speed, and access — delivered through a user-friendly, intuitive interface. Portals provide a dynamic way to deliver services on an individual basis while reducing the time and expense required to provision manually. The result is a faster, more efficient, consumer-like experience that tech-savvy end users seek.

Step 3. Provision Resources

While today’s empowered end users often bring their own personal technology into the workplace, providing the tools that workers need and want can be a win-win proposition. Employees are relieved of the financial burden and the risk of supplying their own devices. Meanwhile, the organization regains a measure of control over the devices linked to the infrastructure, thereby enhancing security and compliance. By limiting and standardizing options — with end-user input — organizations can simplify the management and service functions provided by IT, potentially saving as much, or more, than the cost of purchasing the devices.

Personas in Action

A leading financial services provider needed a better way to onboard new employees. The firm provided each new employee with a standard device that would require frequent updates to meet each end user’s unique needs – a time-consuming and expensive process. Now, new employees are assigned an appropriate, predefined persona. The persona delineates the employee’s workplace needs — including devices, applications, configurations, access privileges, connectivity requirements, and more. The new onboarding process takes far less time, leading to greater productivity and higher satisfaction. In addition, the firm reported a reduction in service desk requests.

Step 4. Streamline Service

Persona-based portals can also provide end users with a more responsive and satisfactory service experience. With the appropriate information assigned to each end-user’s portal, many issues can be resolved quickly through on-demand self-service. When end users need the help of an agent, technicians have immediate access to the end-user’s devices, applications, subscriptions, and access privileges. This can simplify and speed issue diagnosis and resolution.

CompuCom Can Help

CompuCom has a rich history of helping organizations manage technology challenges. We offer a robust portfolio of solutions designed to help organizations enable end users while enhancing productivity, efficiency, and satisfaction, including:

CompuCom Persona & Community Services capture and categorize more than 150 unique

persona attributes within your organization. We then assign them to end users, based on their work roles. This lets you empower each end-user with the applications and devices that they want and need. Personas are dynamic and can be refined as needs evolve. This helps align IT activity with business objectives while increasing efficiency.

CompuCom Persona Portal Services deliver an “easy-to-use, easy-to-choose” user-centric

experience that reinvents how end users interact with products, services, subscriptions, and support services. We combine the horsepower of a B2B engine with the elegance of a B2C design to deliver enterprise-class end-user services and a personalized, consumer-like experience. Persona-based portals are customized for end-users’ devices, authorizations, applications, and business needs — with a focus on improving productivity and maximizing resource utilization.

CompuCom Mobility & Device Services is a full-spectrum offering for incorporating devices

into your sanctioned IT environment and manage them from acquisition through disposition. CompuCom can help configure and integrate devices, including PCs, tablets, smartphones, thin clients, and others — as well stage services for multiple end-user systems and platforms. This solution is designed to increase end-user productivity, satisfaction levels, and collaboration, while keeping you on the vanguard of technology performance and security.

CompuCom Customer Care Services provide personal-touch interaction with skilled agents

that are uniquely matched to specific business personas and their requirements. The result is a B2C-like service experience in a B2B environment. The solution is designed to speed issue resolution, improve end-user productivity, and lower support costs. CompuCom can provide a single-point-of-contact Service Desk option, or add walk-up Solution Cafés that enable end users to drop off devices for service at their convenience.

CompuCom

Leads the Way

CompuCom’s infrastructure

management experience, industry talent, and proven ITSM process methodologies are just part of the reason we consistently outpace our competitors in client satisfaction and service quality. Our solutions draw on our nearly 30-year legacy of supporting end users to address today’s critical business imperatives. CompuCom is a strategic partner to six of the top ten retailers and financial services firms in North America3_.

And, Gartner has

positioned us as a Leader in “Ability to Execute” in the 2014 Gartner Magic Quadrant for End-User Outsourcing4_.

Learn more about CompuCom and our comprehensive services.

Visit us online at CompuCom.com or call us at +1 800.225.1475 today.

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About CompuCom

Dallas-based CompuCom Systems, Inc. is a leading provider of end-user enablement, service experience management, and cloud technology services to Fortune 1000 companies. CompuCom partners with enterprises to develop smarter ways they can work, grow and produce value for their business. Founded in 1987, privately held CompuCom has approximately 11,500 associates and supports more than 4 million end users in North America. For more information, visit www.compucom.com.