BYOD And Indian SMEs: Adoption, Benefits And Pitfalls

Mobility needs are indeed paramount among India SMEs; a huge majority of them have employees travelling regularly to build relationships with their business partners across cities, states and even national borders at times This is also a main trigger for higher adoption of mobile devices and BYOD. Consequently, SMEs display high levels of mobile device penetration. Focusing on medium businesses (MBs) first; 55 percent have tablets and 80-85 percent have smartphones/Wireless Internet Cards (WICs). Penetration of smartphones/WICs is also fairly high within small businesses (SBs) at 55-65 percent. At present, BYOD policies are not being followed stringently by SMEs – 55 percent of SBs and 43 percent of MBs do not place any restrictions on employees regarding the brands of Smartphones used for business. These are a few highlights emerging from the soon to be published “2013 India SMB Mobility Landscape, Opportunity Assessment & Outlook” study conducted by New York-based AMI-Partners.

This uncertain attitude of Indian SMEs about BYOD is influenced by several factors. Consumerisation of IT is indeed proliferating in the business space to a large extent. Consequently, business managers expect prompt action and real time feedback from employees in order to enhance bottom line in a squeezed economic environment. It is also true that there is a plethora of choices in the devices space with respect to form factors, Operating Systems, applications, aesthetics, etc. At the same time - there is no clear way forward in BYOD as yet.

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“Through many conversations with CIOs and CEOs over the past few months, it is becoming evident that BYOD is seen as an inevitable trend by senior management. They look to themselves when evaluating this trend. Often they would be toggling between personal and official devices. Since they enjoy a seamless experience themselves - they do not wish to deprive the team of the benefits,” says Rati Ghose, Director – Market Insights, AMI-Partners India.

The benefits accruing to the employee and the company have two aspects – tangible as well as intangible. While the cost of a device, be it a smartphone or a tablet is a tangible aspect - it is the intangibles that play a big role in the adoption of BYOD in organisations. “What price can you put to employee satisfaction and ease of working, or on morale for empowering them to bring their choice of device to work? In fact, in only around a third of Indian SMEs, the company actually enforces a preferred list of brands for business use,” says Ghose.

While BYOD is most definitively a trend, the market is nascent with respect to usage policies and security. Most Senior Managers and CIOs in the SME space are grappling with the trend itself. It is too early for a standardised policy as there are various Operating Systems and form factors to deal with. After a dominance of Blackberry in the corporate sphere, the market is still evolving. There is no clear direction that Android or iOS will dominate. “Even hard-nosed banks are re-thinking their BlackBerry policies and keeping it on hold. In some cases, since iOS devices have gained momentum and popularity amongst the senior managers, the IT team has taken the initiative to put Android devices on hold for now or vice versa in order to reduce complexity,” Ghose continued.

The pitfalls with respect to data security etc are a reality. However, SMEs are dealing with these issues on an ad hoc basis.

Despite the threats that abound with a BYOD policy, SMEs are not taking enough precautions. The time and cost organisations need to spend on proper BYOD policies seems daunting to the SMEs. “Most have restricted applications on the device to mails or minimal Intranet applications,” says Ghose. “Like any other technology adoption, this too will come in a wave of adoption. Once the policies are in place for Enterprises and SMEs see the value by allowing greater access to the corporate network and system, they will also see value in investing in structured BYOD policies.”