Can Corporate IT Adapt to the BYOD Trend?

Bring Your Own Device, or BYOD, is one of the most intriguing trends in corporate IT today – and it has important implications for everyone involved in IT management, from procurement and finance to IT operations, security, IT asset management (ITAM) and sustainability officers. With the explosive growth of smartphones, iPads, netbooks and other consumer technologies, many companies are recognizing that policies that enable their employees to use their personal technology on the job can boost productivity and improve job satisfaction and efficiency.

As Erik Savitz blogged recently on Forbes, the trend is “one of the more dramatic results of the consumerization of IT, in which consumer preference, not corporate initiative, drives the adoption of technologies in the enterprise.” Validating the trend, Savitz cites a recent Gartner study notes that 90% of organizations will support corporate applications on personal devices by 2014.

No question, BYOD will drive major changes in corporate IT and asset disposition policies. Throughout the PC era, corporate IT policies have been based on the assumption that employees would use company-owned technology. As a result, IT management required a centralized, “command and control” approach to track and deploy valuable assets while ensuring security, compliance with company policies and environmental safeguards at the end of useful life.

But that approach is changing fast, as innovative, powerful technology gets into the hands of consumers first. That means employees are showing up at work asking why they can’t use the technology they own if it will help them do their jobs better, faster and more efficiently.

But moving away from rigorous controls that are long-established presents a variety of challenges, including data security, IT asset management, IT operations and sustainability. To help our readers learn more about this important trend, we have asked our team to develop a blog series that examines BYOD from a variety of perspectives. Redemtech News Bureau Editor Bart Porter kicks off the series with an overview of the extensive media coverage the BYOD trend has received in recent weeks. Read News Media Tracks Explosive Growth of BYOD. Next, get insights about the implications of BYOD for:

• ITAM. Barbara Scott, Senior Practice Advisor for IT Asset Management, examines the impact of BYOD on customer and shareholder satisfaction as well as costs and security. Read BYOD: To Bring or Not to Bring
• Sustainability. Carol Baroudi, Green IT and Sustainability Advisor, discusses how BYOD affects electronic device recycling and sustainability issues. Read BYOD and Sustainable IT: The Good, The Bad, The Problematic
• Security. Jeff Kramer, Solutions Architect and Data Security Practice Advisor, delves into the security complications and the need for compromise between stakeholders and end users. Read Bring Your Own Device Calls for Compromise
• IT Operations. Dave Duhl, IT Director and IT Operations Practice Advisor, addresses the risks of supporting non-company owned assets and offer a reasonable operational response. Read BYOD: Risks to Reason

We hope you will visit us here at the Redemtech blog during the next week and join in a robust conversation about this emerging topic. If you’re heading to Orlando to attend the Gartner IT Financial, Procurement and Asset Management Summit or the Gartner Outsourcing and Vendor Management Summit, we hope you will stop by and continue the discussion.