It wasn't so long ago that many companies were still grappling with the idea of even allowing employees to bring their own devices to work and use them instead of those issued by company stores. But a new study from Gartner (News - Alert) suggests that companies may well have already gotten past the "should we or shouldn't we" stage and gone clear to the next extreme: making BYOD mandatory.
The Gartner study also revealed several other interesting tidbits about the BYOD philosophy that's gaining ground with almost disturbing rapidity in the corporate world. For instance, according to the Gartner study, 38 percent of workplaces expect to completely stop providing employees with devices by 2016. That's everything from desktop PCs to smartphones and beyond. Oddly, the BYOD phenomenon is catching on most clearly with medium-sized to big enterprises. If the business generates $500 million to $5 billion in annual revenue, or has an employee roster of between 2,500 and 5,000 employees, it likely has a BYOD plan in place.
What's more, BYOD isn't just an American phenomenon. The so-called BRIC nations--Brazil, Russia, India and China--have at least some level of BYOD going on. The unlikely laggard in BYOD is Europe, which has strict rules regarding data protection, and some attribute these rules to slow adoption of BYOD. As for reimbursement in BYOD, around half will be partial reimbursement, while programs that offer full reimbursement "will become rare", meaning that employers will be expecting employees to pick up the costs of devices on at least some level.
With many companies looking to adopt a BYOD philosophy to the point that it's a requirement, it's worth noting that the idea itself still has some issues requiring some work. Ideas that many IT departments like to point out whenever BYOD emerges as a topic of discussion, specifically, security and interoperability. With more companies allowing BYOD--even requiring it--the issue of protecting data becomes even more important than ever. Why? Because where formerly, the devices required to access a corporate network were contained in a corporate office connected by cables, the devices now leave the building, providing a way to access that data on a one-on-one basis. Meanwhile, there's the issue of interoperability to consider. Not every device plays well with other devices, and some devices work better together than others. Accounting for these differences is going to be vital to make BYOD mandatory, and putting the burden of providing interoperability on employees may not pan out well.
Essentially, BYOD is a good idea, but it's often better as an option, a perk, rather than a requirement. BYOD can be a requirement, yes, but it requires the alteration of a lot of infrastructure to make it truly effective. It can even require so much alteration that the savings potential of BYOD is lost to the costs of adapting the environment to accommodate the change. BYOD is certainly a development worth considering, but it may not be a good idea to make it a mandatory change without considering the kind of impact such a move may ultimately have.
Edited by Rachel Ramsey