Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) has been making waves in the business world, with a large number of companies opening up to the concept to enhance business productivity. This concept is here to stay and most organizations are moving from providing their employees with a desktop device and a locked down user environment. This concept has made its rounds in the world of news and everybody is now aware of it. However, this concept has been upped a notch and has made way to a new concept- BYOx. BYOx is an extended version or the evolution, so to speak, of the BYOD concept.
While BYOD is restricted to the device itself, BYOx, on the other hand brings into its purview a plethora of things associated with the device like the applications, the data, the services, the ports etc. Working professionals do not want to limit their work options when it comes to their device and are moving to a situation where they can bring their own device with a variety of operating systems, including iOS, Android, Mac, etc. and their own applications and services, including the likes of DropBox, and want to use them in concurrence with corporate resources to generate a personalized user experience that suits them.
So putting it simply, BYOx is going beyond plugging a device into the network and enabling the use of network to gain connectivity. It is about combining personal and work related content in a single interface (possibly on multiple devices) to generate a secured and personalized workspace that enhances user experience and promotes productivity. While it sounds simple enough, implementing it is no walk in the park. Its implementation requires managing a complex relationship between management, employees and IT. Each of their viewpoints differs when it comes to connecting people to assets to enable them to do what they need to do as efficiently and securely as possible.
Taking management into consideration first, we get a good look into why companies want to implement BYOx programs. Smartphone users on an average work longer hours than others owing to the fact that they have a small form factor computer in their hand. The business benefits of BYOx are plenty- it makes for a happy and motivated workforce, it is a valuable tool in recruiting and retaining talent, and more importantly it helps to improve productivity across the organization to maintain the competitive advantage that is detrimental to the progress of the company. These benefits do have to be counterbalanced with the issues of security and cost, and ensuring that corporate data is secured and doesn't fall into the wrong hands, whichever device is being used to access it. In the case of device loss and thefts, the security threats are huge if the device is not protected well enough.
When it comes to users; a company that allows employees to bring personal devices to work generally projects an image of an attractive place to work. It fosters improved innovation and collaboration both with peers and with partners outside of the company to achieve business goals.
Employees who buy devices like smartphones and tablets want to be able to use them to access small amounts of information from a readily available handheld device, spend longer periods of time to study a detailed piece of documentation and manipulate content on a larger device, like a laptop for instance. As the blurring of private and business worlds continues, users are going to want more from the IT department- the age when an employee is given a desktop PC to work on is coming to an end-users are looking for a culture of enablement rather than one of locks and limitations.
Last but not the least we have IT. It is the job of the IT department to ensure that the solutions implemented meet the productivity and security requirements of the management team, as well as the flexibility and diversity requirements of the workforce at large.
While there are other business related issues at play in implementing a BYOx solution, the focus here is specifically on technology aspects. Three very specific areas that the IT department should focus on when it comes to BYOx are:
• End to End Device Management: This pertains to not merely the devices in play, but the infrastructure that companies need to deploy to be able to add and manage endpoints on the corporate network.
• User and Content Management: Here the focus is on how an IT manager is able to get an integrated overview of the applications and services and who can get access to them from where.
• Security: It probably ranks highest in the list of concerns when it comes to BYOx and in its various forms is what lays a solid foundation to enabling a perfectly acceptable BYOx implementation.
If these three elements i.e. management, employees/users and IT are harmonized there is no limit to the potential that BYOx can bring in. BYOx will most likely be the future of the business world and companies would do well to gear themselves up to embrace this technology and make the most out of it.
