The term BYOD is expanding its scope, including not only devices, but also cosumer-oriented technologies, like apps and cloud services (i.e. Google Docs or Microsoft Skydrive). The term is evolving from BYOD to BYOT, making things more challenging for companies and their IT departments.

At this phase of the information age, technology evolves and buzzwords and new concepts arise. Moreover, in recent years, the increasing role that technologies play with human interactions is creating the same effect in a wider, new space: the social space.

BYOD—Bring Your Own Device-- is one of these effects. It is a social hype, and not necessarily a business phenomenon. This is because it has been not originated as a need of the corporations itself but as a natural behavior of its employees, collaborators or even clients.

The concept of “Smartphone”, originally exploited by BlackBerry for business purposes, rapidly began to expand for personal use. Devices improved and became more flexible, allowing users to do even more with apps and functionalities than ever possible with a typical voice and email communication on a feature phone. Mobility, though not new, is a concept that rapidly exploded, putting information in the hands of practically “any” user.

Along with these phenomena, people started to bring their personal devices to work, preferring their own devices over the one provided by the company for business purposes. This was further propelled as the lines between work and personal needs blurred as employees had to be always connected as a part of a global, mobile workforce.

Thus, BYOD didn´t start as a business need, but rather as an effect of the “democratization” of technology. Thus, a new buzzword is born: “consumerization”, which could be defined as the consequence of bringing consumer technology to the workplace, and using it for both personal and work-related matters.

The term BYOD is expanding its scope, including not only devices, but also consumer-oriented technologies, like apps and web services ( Google Docs or Microsoft Skydrive). The term is evolving from BYOD to BYOT, making things more challenging for companies and their IT de-partments.

BYOD:Highlights of “Consumerization”

Rodrigo ReyCorporate IT Director

Practical InSights

‘Practical InSights’ is a Neoris publication. This material shall not be reproduced or copied in whole or in part without Neoris’ express consent. Neoris is a business and IT consulting

company specialized in value-added consulting, emerging technologies and outsourcing solutions. Headquartered in Miami, Fl. Neoris has operations in the U.S., Europe, Latin America, Africa, and

the Middle East. For local office information, please visit us at www.neoris.com703 Waterford Way. Suite 700. Miami, FL 33126Phone: (1) 305-728-6000 / Fax: (1) 786- 388-3139

Under this reality, the challenge for companies is to give answers to this practice that is silently overtak-ing the work landscape. And these answers have to address two main aspects:

1) Security: this consideration brings three important issues to the discussion:

a. Mobile Data Protection: Users who bring their technology to access at work , build content and store business information on their devices or other services, like cloud storage solutions.

b. Separation of personal and business information: Users held personal and work related information on the same device, and this could imply risks to the confidentiality of business information contained in the device.

c. Protect internal infrastructure: Devices with access to company ‘information, resources and network, might encourage cyber criminals to use these devices as a bridge to grant access to the enterprise infrastruc-ture.

2) Flexibility: Users bring different devices and other technologies (like web services), and on the other hand, companies need to manage this flexibility with proper administration practices.

a. Diversity of Devices and Technologies: Devices with different operating systems, mainly Android, IOs and Windows, and thousands of apps down-loadable from safe and known sites (like iTunes) and other app stores are not necessarily secure.

b. Understand User Profiles: Users are different and there is no “one size fits all.” It is important to understand the different users’ profiles and needs, and based on these aspects define eligibility for a BYOD program.

Some statistics:This trend is global. Although with some variations in different geographies, the pattern is undoubtedly able growing. Analysts such as Forrester reported in Q4 2012 that in India for zexample, nearly 75% of employees use their own smartphones, mobile apps and online services or subscriptions for both personal and work-related purposes. In the case of tablets, this percentage drops to 62%.

In other geographies this trend is confirmed. Gartner surveyed employees of companies of different indus-tries around the world, concluding interesting results the U.S., 55% of employees use their personal Smartphone for work purposes, while in Brazil the percentage raises to 71%. On the other hand, Euro-pean countries show more conservative numbers. But the common factor, in any case, is that the trend is growing.

Gartner , for example, estimates that by 2015, the number of employees using mobile applications in the workplace will double. And by 2017 half of em-ployers will require employees to supply their own device for work purposes. In terms of administration costs for companies, by 2016 the typical organiza-tion will spend over $300 per year per employee on mobile applications, security, management and support.

Are there real benefits of adopting a BYOD program?As it was expressed above, BOYD is a product of a modern social behavior more than a business re-quirement. Some analysts that defend BYOD mention several of benefits directly or indirectly associated to this trend:

• Bring your own device (BYOD) drives innovation for businesses by increasing the number of mobile application users in the workforce.

• BYOD improves employee satisfaction, given the possibility for each employee of using the technology that best fits his/her needs. And this satisfaction could impact improved productivity.

• BYOD could lead to costs reductions, depending on the extent of the program implementation, the local culture and regulations.

The realization of these and other benefits will depend on the way a company could implement a successful BYOD program, and positive results could be reinforced or mitigated depending on the company´s DNA or culture.

What are companies doing to respond to this growing trend?

IT Departments have to develop an answer to orga-nize the exponential growth of business and personal data of employees, collaborators, consumers, and not only corporate users.

Under this situation, companies need to address the challenges of BYOD by developing and implement-ing a solid BYOD policy. This policy is prepared jointly with IT, Legal, Finance and HR areas, addressing all the possible aspects and impacts described above, and additionally considering local regulations.

This policy should take into account the following considerations:1) Define type of users. Usually called “persona analysis” shall be executed to ensure a proper iden-tification of different profiles and user needs, and then define the level of involvement that these users will have in a BYOD program.

2) Define eligible devices and technologies: not all devices or technologies are appropriate to ensure an acceptable level of security required to deal with companies’ critical information out of enterprise fa-cilities.

3) Establish authorized apps stores and download sites: the policy shall clearly prohibit “hijacking” of mobile devices or download apps or information from non-secure sites. Moreover, some companies could provide exclusive company stores for apps, disabling or limiting the possibility of downloading apps outside this company´s apps store.

4) Define conditions and criteria to access business data.

5) Besides the policy, companies should implement a system to ensure the remote administration of devices allowed to connect to business information resources. This solutions should provide (as a mini-mum):

a. Information wipe-out in case of robbery or lost.b. Allow download of only permitted apps.c. Data “containerization” (in order to keep separated personal and business information).

Companies need to respond to the BYOD phenome-non not only by granting access to employees who want to have their email on their personal devices. Security is an important concern and should be addressed as soon as the implementation of a BYOD program is decided upon.

The best instrument to provide security is a BYOD policy. After implementing a first version of the policy, the next step is to analyze tools that could help companies to ensure compliance to this policy. These tools are known as MDM (mobile data mana gement) and allow a proper management of business information during the day-to-day activities and un-der remarkable situations, such as loss or theft of the device.

Companies need to respond to BYOD phenomenon not only by granting access to employees who want to have their email on their personal devices. Security is an important concern and should be addressed as soon as the implementation of a BYOD program is decided upon.

“IT Departments have to develop an answer to organize the exponential growth of business and personal data of employees, collaborators, consumers, and not only corporate users. ”