IT Decision-Makers Feeling The Pressure To Adopt BYOD Strategies

The multibillion dollar question in the ICT industry is what path CIOs and IT decision makers will take to tackle the consumerisation of IT. As many are struggling to manage the proliferation of consumer devices invading the enterprise workspace, the implementation of bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies is being viewed as one answer.

A recent IDC report shows that an increasing number of CIO and IT decision makers are feeling the pressure to transform and conform to the top-down push by executives and bottom up demand from the general employees to support consumer technologies such as media tablets and smartphones.

“Widely publicised and high-profile BYOD case studies are further adding to the peer pressure. One in every two organisations is intending to deploy official BYOD policies, be it pilots, or partial- to organisational-wide rollouts, in the next 18 months,” said Amy Cheah, market analyst, Infrastructure, IDC ANZ.

“However, there is a disconnect between the assumptions and expectations held by CIOs and IT decision makers — and commonly by supply-side organisations — and the majority of employees when it comes to consumer technologies, device usage, and responsibility. IDC’s Next Generation Workspace Ecosystem research has found that only two out of ten employees want to use their own device for work and for personal use, which means corporate devices are still desired by the majority.”

For CIOs and IT decision makers intending to deploy BYOD strategies, the result will likely be a broader range of devices and operating systems (OS) connecting to the corporate network at a more frequent rate, considering the shorter life cycle of many consumer devices. This will be complemented by more frequent upgrades of OSs and the need to ensure that application performance as these upgrades occur.

“Whilst many expect BYOD to help reduce costs, these shorter life cycles will need to be managed carefully in order to mitigate any blowouts in support, application modernisation, and lost employee productivity,” Cheah added.

Unless BYOD strategies are fully supported by the majority of employees in any given organisation, the deployment of such a policy may be simply problem shifting. IDC’s recent report found that device policies that are flexible and accommodating of all parties’ preferences are more likely to be successful. In other words, “choice” will be a defining characteristic of successful device policies in the future.