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Category: BYOD

There are 3 posts published under BYOD.

How a BYOD Policy Frees Up IT Resources

More and more electronic devices are being integrated into the workforce. Whereas only the most elite business people owned smartphones in the early 2000s, nearly everyone has one in their pocket now. Accordingly to Business Insider Intelligence, 22 percent of the world’s population owns a smartphone, that’s nearly 1.4 billion smartphones, and the number is only growing. Those who don’t, usually have some kind of impassioned plea about resisting technology.

So with the abundance of smartphones and tablets, many corporations are starting to wonder why they should spend time and money on issuing company devices. With a bring your own device (BYOD) policy, companies can conserve an enormous amount of resources, which is why the trend is taking corporate America by storm.

What is a BYOD policy?

A BYOD policy allows workers to use their own personal smartphones, tablets and other tech gadgets for company use. While this method of doing business was previously shunned by IT professionals who had concerns about device security, the latest advancements in technology are quickly making BYOD programs the norm. Mobile communications leader BlackBerry has been offering BYOD programs for years, and now there are even more providers getting involved in the latest trend.

Although a BYOD policy is an added bonus for workers who don’t want the hassle of learning a new device, but here are a few ways it is an even bigger win for companies.

It’s a Money Saver

It’s no question that supplying smartphones, tablets and laptops to employees can add up quickly, and the cost for repairs and replacements can be relentless. Companies that allow workers to bring their own device eliminate this exorbitant cost, which automatically helps their bottom line, and frees up resources to be spent on other important IT items.

Though some companies do offer a stipend to individuals who use their own devices, the amount pales in comparison to what would be spent if employers were supplying the devices and their accessories. In addition, according to Good Technology, nearly 50 percent of companies who implemented BYOD are requiring employees to cover all costs, and the workers are going for it. It seems the convenience of using your own familiar tools has substantial worth.

Productivity Increases

It’s a fact of office life, there are precious minutes spent in boring trainings and meetings that we can never get back. With a BYOD policy, however, fewer minutes are spent on such things by IT professionals and new employees. By allowing workers to bring their own devices, companies eliminate the need for training sessions. Rather than host a training session every time there is a new hire, which can be often for large businesses, IT workers can simply send an email with instructions on which apps and programs to download and let the employees take it from there. This frees up time for the new employee to get to work, and gives IT additional time to spend on more important tasks.

Less Time on Repairs, More Time on Product Development

Though every company would love to outfit their employees with the very latest tech gadgets, it usually isn’t in the budget. Individuals, however, are more likely to have the latest versions of devices and software for their personal use. This means fewer complications, generally faster networks and the ability to take advantage of the latest apps and programs.

With a fleet of relatively newer models, IT will spend less time trying to repair items and more time researching and implementing the cutting-edge technology that companies need to thrive, and then passing it on to their employees.

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What is Changing in the Enterprise World?

I have argued in my last blog that if there is a single enterprise area that is fast being changed due to consumerization of IT and BYOD — it is the mobile enterprise.

 

Users want access to applications of their choice on any device. not just email. They also want the application to be customized, configured for their own individual and personalized mobile experiences quite different from the “one size fits all” model that enterprise IT has applied all these years.

 

Users want data and workflow of any enterprise app to be made available on any device and the ability to customize and personalize the workflow with other ready to use services and consume them on any device for a satisfying user experience. They also want this to happen with little time or cost. At the same time they want these applications to be of the same levels of security authentication, authorization and privacy fitting with Enterprise IT guidelines. In other words they want flexibility, with control. Enterprise IT clearly has a role to play here. To know how they can play we need to understand how one builds enterprise mobile apps in the new world.

 

How does IT build Enterprise mobile Apps today

 

Let’s examine the traditional approach to enterprise mobile apps: you build a web app and then retool and redesign and build native mobile app for a platform. There are the drawbacks to this approach:

 

  • Time to build for native is much greater
  • One has to build for each platform and there are too many of them.

 

The other way is to code your own HTML5/CSS3/JavaScript on the client side and code the server side (using tools like PHP, Ruby, Java, Visual, Studio.net) and then you still have to figure out providing access to the native hardware of the mobile device.

 

The drawbacks are:

 

  • The time it takes to write the server side in ROR, Php, Java etc.
  • The time it takes to write the client side code in JavaScript, CSS3, HTML5. Yes there are tools and libraries such as Sencha JQuery for rapid application development but it still requires significant time to integrate.
  • You still have to create the shell for access to native hardware functionality

 

How can we do it better?

 

The challenge is to accommodate the “work anywhere, anytime” productivity and user satisfaction benefits that consumerization of IT and BYOD can bring, while retaining enough control to keep company data secure and compliance requirements satisfied. The difficulty is in building business apps that run on the web AND on all the major mobile platforms in all the form factors, and user interfaces in a cost effective and timely fashion. This is where traditional approaches break down – more time and more money and still works on a single platform. The problem is compounded with the difficulty in recruiting people with the requisite talent.

 

We looked at mobile apps in native mode and HTML5. The third approach is to use the newly emerging low footprint, automated cloud platform to create, transform, configure, customize and manage mobile experiences in real time and no code. This is a better suited approach in a world converged by mobile, cloud and social. This is where the UI and app-logic are manufactured and emitted to devices at run time for a rich optimized performance, anytime, anywhere.

 

Here even a user can shape the mobile experience with a design palette offering all the services that enterprise IT will allow the enterprise user. It is a departure from traditional approach of enterprise IT awarding the job to an offshore service to reprogram and recode the application to a newer model that involves Enterprise IT as both change agent and cheer leader of a newer platform for rich experiences to accelerate the mobile enterprise.

 

The steps are simple. Focus on the one part that is unique to each enterprise application i.e. its data and workflow. Make sure that it can work on any device in a simple and optimized way. That procedure is by integrating the mobile cloud platform with the existing enterprise application using the integration studio and the workflow orchestration engine. The process is to let the cloud platform to connect to the web application that has to be mobile enabled, auto extract the workflow, integrate with other workflows/ business functions of the user’s choice, mobile enable the composite application, package security, manageability for enterprise use, and consume on any device. There is no HTML code, no native code, no scripting. One such platform is MoNimbus™ , with it you have end applications for mobile web and native platforms in real time and no code.

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The Evolution of BYOD

It seems to be everywhere. Even if you aren’t aware of its meaning, the chances are good that you are at least familiar with the acronym: BYOD. It has evolved to such a degree, in such a relatively short amount of time, that it has resulted in a sort of paradigm shift within the business and technology industries.

 

It has literally changed the way that corporations across industries conduct business and, suffice to say, there doesn’t appear to be any signs of this trend slowing down.

 

What Is BYOD?

 

As an idea, BYOD is somewhat monumental. As an acronym, BYOD is simple – it’s short for Bring Your Own Device. With the emergence of ever more capable mobile devices, businesses are finding that they can reduce overhead costs, provide for increased flexibility in the workplace, and improve employee morale by allowing individuals to provide their own hardware. While it may be some time before laptops and desktop computers disappear from the workplace entirely, the BYOD trend has started businesses down that path.

 

In effect, BYOD allows individuals to furnish their own tools – the tools that they feel will best suit their needs – to accomplish their daily work responsibilities. This strategy helps to eliminate training time, procurement costs, and upkeep of company software, all while improving morale, efficiency and productivity. Put simply, people who use their own devices in the workplace can work more quickly, with greater satisfaction. It is for these reasons and more that BYOD has begun to explode in the workplace.

 

From Small Beginnings Come Great Things

 

The term BYOD is relatively young. In fact, it only first appeared in a 2005 paper presented at UBICOMP, the yearly conference on computing. While this may be eons ago in internet time, it’s impossible to deny that any technological development that is less than a decade old can only be considered in its infancy. And yet, since its “birth,” adoption has continued to increase and familiarity is becoming greater by the day. The trend may be young, but it is by no means found wanting.

 

This expansion has been made possible in part by smarter, more capable, and more flexible mobile devices. The BlackBerry BYOD revolution was arguably the start of it all; BlackBerry devices allowed access to email, internet and apps on the go, and paved the way for similar smart devices. Since then, the market has been joined by the likes of Android, Apple, Microsoft and others, and is now at the point of saturation. There are new smart devices being introduced every week, it would seem, and each is advertised as being more capable or more unique than the next.

 

If the appropriate hardware and software needs to first be invented for a BYOD workplace environment to be adopted, it is also worth noting that widespread adoption was dependent on companies getting on board early and embracing this new way of approaching business. It’s no small feat, considering how intractable industries can be, and how slow they can be to adopt new technologies. Yet, as the statistics show, companies have been quick to embrace BYOD. Shockingly so, when one considers that the first BlackBerry was launched in 1999. From the first days of the BlackBerry BYOD revolution, the industry has moved forward at warp speed without once looking back.

 

What the Future Holds

 

It should perhaps come as no surprise that all signs point to BYOD becoming even more prevalent in the near future. In fact, not only do more than 50 percent of companies within the United States already allow a BYOD workplace policy, but some predict that by 2017, 50 percent of companies will require individuals to furnish their own devices for work. Considering that smart devices increase productivity, improve morale, help eliminate unnecessary training requirements, allow for employees to come up to speed in less time, and reduce procurement costs, it only makes sense. The big question is not whether or not BYOD will catch on; after all, it already has. The question is: how soon will it be until BYOD enjoys 100 percent adoption?

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