BYOD - Our Newest ITSM Acronym

At last week's 3rd Annual ITSM Conferences in KL & Singapore we kicked off by showing the Pink video "Are You Ready?" and I talked for a while about how today's corporate IT departments need to show more awareness of risks and opportunities associated with changes in technology & services, otherwise their value- and even relevancy - could come into question by their business leaders. We supported the discussion by referring to the consumerization of IT infrastructure & services and how some organizations ARE keeping pace with this trend. For example, see this CIO article about Ford's experiences and vision in this area. Today my buddy George Spalding sent me this link to a New York Times article citing a Forrester report which states that almost half of the cell phones in use in business today were sourced by the employee and not corporate IT. It's interesting how the researcher describes the gradual erosion of RIM's lead in this market as some employees prefer Android and Apple devices. RIM made a huge impact initially by checking all the boxes that corporate IT wanted in smart-phones (security, integration, etc). Then the newer alternates on the Android and iPhone platforms appealed directly to the end user by checking a different set of boxes (music, photos, videos, social media, touch-screens, etc) BYOD (Bring Your Own Device to work) is the way of the future for many of us. It appeals to the employee AND the employer - if managed well.

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I used to be against this concept, but it seems to make more and more sense.  For IT, I see it meaning two things primarily: the downside is that areas such as systems security and IP etc. are severely challenged.  The flipside is that IT might gain a lighter workload by not being responsbile for supporting a myriad of devices.  BYOD should equate to SYOD (support your own device). Does this then make us individually responsible for providng the tools to run a business?

Richard Stevenson | September 22, 2011 at 12:07pm

David, it was a pleasure meeting you at the BEDC lunch.The BYOD concept will bring many challenges to IT policies if it becomes the norm. I am glad I completed my project at a simpler time.
Thanks for an excellent website,

Paul Boucek | September 26, 2011 at 4:41pm

You really can’t put the genie back in the bottle, can you? Now that people have the ability - and means - to buy and use their own devices (not just smart-phones, but tablets and the rest) it’s very difficult to prevent them from using these things for corporate purposes. Even just to move data around via personal USB sticks - hopefully only when there’s a genuine business need or efficiency opportunity. (Risk: what happens to the copy that remains on the stick, does it always get deleted afterwards?) The best corporate IT can do is be aware of these risks and provide strong direction for how people need to behave.

I like the SYOD concept. It goes hand-in-hand with the first level of BYOD maturity. Although, as with the Ford example, if corporate IT published a list of what technologies ARE supported and a statement that “you’re on your own with anything else” (SYOD) then we’re at least steering people in a direction which gives corporate IT just that bit more of an opportunity to manage things.

David Ratcliffe, President | September 28, 2011 at 11:21am

Nice blog. However, i’d say that BYOD is just another sign of the proliferation of ubiquitous ‘rogue IT’ in many (most?) organisation.

As cloud and SaaS provider shift their attack from IT to LOB AND as the consumerization of high end technologies AND services continues, IT will need to adapt or will see itself relegated to operating and maintaining large system that can’t be outsourced/consumerized.

That’s one of the reason I like the idea of seeing internal IT operate ‘like a business’. It’s all about being a service provider which will force IT to think and act more as an entrepreneur, as an innovator than simply an operator.

Only by taking that step can we justify the move of IT from support (A cost center) to innovation (enabler).

This is a big cultural shift for many and it may be a hard sell in some organisation.

My 0.02cents anyway… wink

Yvon Decelles | October 6, 2011 at 3:19pm

Well said, Yvon!

David Ratcliffe, President | October 11, 2011 at 11:21am

BYOD appears to be turning the corner even here in the government sector, though we really don’t have the most coherent position just yet.  Because security is such a HUGE concern, it has taken awhile to gain any significant traction.  All it takes in this climate is for one colossal security incident involving a personally owned mobile device to lose that traction. That is why we have seen hesitation in supporting the Android devices because of their lack of a central, controlled App Store envirnoment that reduces potential risks to the business.


That said—when it comes down to it, I feel like IT doesn’t have a choice in this matter, we have to figure out how to do this or they’ll find someone who will. 

From the Service Desk side—I do love the SYOD model because it really is hard for us to keep up on all the technology platforms - and, as mentioned, it is cost and logistically challenging to supply and staff the experts.

Good discussion!

(these views are my own of course, and not that of my gigantic employer)

Phil Day | October 11, 2011 at 11:56am

SYOD is a good idea… in principle. In practice its often difficult to really implement as a ‘hard line’. There will always be some blurry lines as to what will be supported and not based on what does not work and whom is having the problem. We live with those now with supported device, imagine with SYOD, this will require Provisioning for those grey in some fashion or another.

Some organisation I’ve seen have opted to play blind to these issues but it always comes back and bite them you know where.

Me, I rather deal with the issue and be proactive about it but I understand that often times, ramifications can go wide, REAL fast.

Control of expectations is the key here.

Yvon Decelles | October 11, 2011 at 1:27pm

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