The traditional IT department model is built around control of both the software and hardware that employees use. But with control comes cost and responsibility, both burdens that some organizations are choosing to offload. With most people these days owning their personal computing power — be it laptop, netbook, tablet or smartphone — in some cases it is making increasing sense (and cents) to let workers use the technology they already own.
It might sound crazy, or at least nontraditional, to relinquish control of some IT resources to individual workers. But the premise behind Bring Your Own Computer (BYOC) is at least appealing enough that it's attracted companies like Microsoft®, Kraft, and Unisys. Whether you are a Fortune 500 or a more modest company, several ideas can help make BYOC a success.
Set minimum technical standards for employee-owned computers. Most new desktops and laptops have plenty of horsepower for all but very specialized applications, but the cheapest netbooks and tablets can be a little slow for anything but lightweight productivity.
Provide a subsidy for employee-owned computers. Spending money to save money might seem backwards, but BYOC subsidies can actually work out to be a thrifty strategy. Employees given, say, a $500 computer subsidy will probably buy a better computer (faster, less prone to breakdown) than they would get via company-wide procurement, while the business will in fact be spending less per machine than buying them outright.
Communicate a clear support policy to eliminate confusion and protect your IT department from distractions. Most of the IT problems people encounter day-to-day are not unique to a specific computer model. Providing support for applications necessary to do their work is independent of the hardware or OS. For the more rare problems involving hardware or the OS installation, employees can pursue vendor or third-party support. Their motivation to resolve problems will be high, considering that the computer is their own, and therefore they likely rely on it for more than just work. In this sense, their computers are no different from their cars, or wardrobes, or whatever else they rely on at work and life outside of work.
Require that users run anti-malware software. Although it may seem like letting users run their own systems is a giant malware threat, the reality is that they would need to run anti-malware scanners on corporate-owned machines anyway. If anything, the diversity of defensive software that users will employ may make your enterprise more secure. Simply put, no anti-malware defense is perfect, and so settling on one uniformly throughout the company could actually expose a wider hole.
(On a related note, IT should be sure that solid perimeter security is in place, like a properly configured firewall and network anti-virus scanner. Preventing security threats from entering via the corporate network is equally important no matter who owns the individual clients being used inside the network.)
Increase reliance on cloud-based applications. In most businesses, users need only a select few applications. Custom applications can be built to run on a client-server model, so your users are simply using their personal computers as terminals, likely through a Web browser. This is ideal, because all corporate data is actually housed on the server and is never stored on the employee’s own computer.
Shift IT control from the client to virtualization. For businesses that need users to run particular desktop applications, virtualization allows employees to run a sandboxed “office PC” in a layer independent of their native OS and hardware. Your IT department can maintain total control over the virtualized platform, including application deployment, giving them the same degree of security and support they would have over company-owned computers, but without actually bearing the cost of the hardware.
For more information, see:
New Rules for Simple, Secure Workforce Flexibility
Maximize the Benefit of Virtualization for Your Operations
Faster Implementation: The Real Benefit of Cloud Computing?
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