BYOA – THE NEW BYOD?

flat design for bring your own device concept

At first, the ‘Bring Your Own Device’ (BYOD) phenomenon seemed no more than just another business trend. However, now that many organisations have adopted BYOD policies, it’s becoming clear that BYOD is just the beginning of a more far-reaching shift in thinking.

For a start, having a BYOD policy is fast becoming seen as a good way to attract the best talent. In a world where having the right staff and mix of skills is seen as a competitive differentiator, this is causing more reticent companies to rethink their approach. BYOD is an acknowledgement that our personal devices have become part of who we are and what we think; in other words, they give us a greater sense of what it means to be an individual.

In fact, the internet expert and futurologist Stowe Boyd, even talks about the BYOM or the Bring Your Own Mind movement which takes this need for individualism in the enterprise to the extreme.

BYOA or Bring Your Own Apps represents a natural progression from BYOD. Employees who now find it second nature to use apps in their personal lives to aid communications, productivity, creativity and organisational skills, now want to use them at work too. It would seem to be counter-productive for businesses to prevent them doing this. But many do have serious concerns about security and consistency and are starting to take steps to control this by setting up enterprise applications stores which offer approved apps only. Is this is going against the spirit of individualism ignited by BYOD? Some businesses believe that the answer is to go yet another step further.

BYOA also stands for ‘Build Your Own Apps’ and these organisations are beginning to harness the individual knowledge and creativity of employees to drive the development of their own tailored apps for specific functions. This latest move has the potential to grow and transform corporate IT as we know it, presenting a vision of businesses run entirely on their own apps. There is a distinct possibility that the large catch-all enterprise applications of the late 20th and early 21st century could be consigned to history.

Desktop computers have gone from state-of-the-art to retro in a matter of years. Even some laptops are now looking decidedly bulky and old-fashioned as tablets and smartphones become not so much a communications tool, but more a way of life. Total shipments of PCs, tablets and mobiles will rise by 7.6 per cent in 2014, hitting 25 billion units by the end of the year, according to analyst firm Gartner. Of that 2.5 billion, almost 75 per cent will be mobile phones, an increase of five per cent compared to 2013.

Penetration of mobile devices is even greater in markets such as India, China, Philippines, Indonesia, South Africa, Saudi Africa and here sales outstripped those of desktop PCs some years ago. Analyst firm IDC even predicts that tablets will outsell laptops this year and that by 2017, over 350 million will be sold per year, closing the gap on the 1.5 billion smartphones it foresees will be sold that year. But phones have their own pedigree.

According to one IT blogger: “Smartphones are the fastest-adopted technology we’ve seen. Five years after introduction, they have proven ten times faster than the 1980s PC revolution, twice as fast as the 1990s internet boom and three times as fast as the noughties’ social networking spread.” Its no wonder that organisations need to think of the future as mobile rather than static.”

Many larger businesses have already come to terms with BYOD and have policies in place to iron out problems and create the right balance between accessibility, usability and security. IT vendors have stepped up to the mark and developed a range of solutions such as mobile device management (MDM) systems which enable secure access to both corporate and employee-owned devices, detecting policy breaches and with authentication features which reduce the risk of un-authorised access to company data.

At the same time, early adopters have now established best practices enabling BYOD without the anxiety. In fact, BYOD policies are now moving from being reactive to proactive with many businesses using the benefits of mobile working to transform their workflow, processes and even their entire business model. Consequently those who don’t allow personal devices run the risk of failing to attract the best young talent.

The US IT trade association, CompTIA has identified that nearly two-thirds of ‘millennials’ use a personal device at work compared to just one third of ‘baby boomers’. Soon these younger workers will make up the largest segment in the workforce. Many IT companies are already competing for these digital natives and pitching technology flexibility such as BYOD to attract them. There’s no doubt that UK companies and other sectors are following their lead.

In a today’s mobile and agile world, large legacy enterprise applications seem increasingly cumbersome. In some cases mergers and acquisitions have left overlapping or conflicting IT infrastructures in their wake with new applications bolted on the top. Large, server-based enterprise applications such as ERP are maintained and updated at a cost, draining restricted IT budgets.

At the same time, often businesses are using only a fraction of their capability, yet have been unable to pick and choose the functions they need. In other words, they’ve been sold a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Besides, accessing data from large enterprise applications via diverse mobile platforms brings problems of operability and security. It’s no wonder that in some sectors younger start-ups taking advantage of the flexibility and scalability of cloud technology are now able to challenge the older more established businesses.

At the other end of the spectrum – employees are voting with their touchscreens. In the same way as they became impatient with outdated corporate technology and brought their own phones and tablets to work, they now want to use the mobile apps they use in their personal lives in the office. Skype, Dropbox, Google Docs, Evernote, plus a long list of other popular and predominately consumer-oriented apps, have become so much part of our everyday lives that we automatically turn to them when we need a certain function.

According to the mobile measurement firm, Flurry Analytics overall app use in 2013 posted a 115% year-over-year growth. A US survey even found that 37% of employees who currently use apps for work would be likely to spend their own money on work-related apps in the next year, if they felt it would help them with their job. Even among those who don’t currently use apps for work, 20% would be prepared to spend their own money. This shows the strength of will surrounding the adoption of apps.

From Bring Your Own to Build Your Own But how long will it be before enterprise apps designed for a wider market become restrictive too? In many ways ruling that an employee must use a designated app, which may not exactly fit what they want it to, goes against the zeitgeist, threatening once again the individualism enabled by BYOD. But BYOA – doesn’t only mean ‘Bring Your Own’ – it stands for ‘Build Your Own’ too – and some companies are now combining top-down vision with an employee’s insider experience to tailor apps that match the way they work and their own specific requirements. But is it really possible to run the front end of a company on bespoke apps? Let’s examine the barriers – and the benefits.

THE BARRIERS TO CREATING AN APP-RUN ORGANISATION…

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  • Although considerably more affordable than purchasing a new server-based application, developing company-specific applications will require some investment at a time when IT budgets continue to be stretched.
  • Apps are ideal for straightforward tasks but may not be great for complex processes that defy any attempts to pare down or streamline. In some cases, oversimplification simply isn’t appropriate.
  • This may lead to multiple apps for everyday tasks – for example, booking holiday may need a different app from recording a sick day or other types of leave. In some cases this can be a strength as it restricts access (see benefits below), but in others it could lead to a complicated profusion of options.
  • Some employees may not own a smartphone or tablet to bring into the workplace. If their use becomes integral to workflow, then the business may have to invest in some communal devices or risk a divisive ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ situation.

AND THE BENEFITS…

  • Innovative use of mobile apps can transform a business, putting IT departments at the heart of business vision and strategic growth.
  • It also ensures improved interaction between a company and its customers and its supply chain, improving customer response and accelerating productivity.
  • Apps can be flexible to match industry and market changes. Tweaking an individual app will be far more economic than changing a large enterprise system.
  • Because the app will be based on first-hand input from employees actually carrying out a task or role every day, it will fit its function closely and therefore help drive productivity.
  • Building your own apps is the ideal way to mitigate the risk of BYOD. An organisation can provide those that only allow the user to access what they need. For example, an HR department might provide apps for requesting holiday to all staff, but only provide the apps to approve it to managers. In other words, only those with a need to access specific systems would be able to do so. If necessary, functionality within the systems themselves could be restricted too.

Each business will be at a different stage along this route. Many will still be deciding whether to encourage BYOD or standardise on one mobile platform. They may be still finding the compromise between keeping their network secure and ensuring that those who need access can have it, when they need it.

Bring Your Own or Build Your Own, may be only a distant idea. However, there are steps that organisations can make now to ensure they will be able to take advantage of the significant benefits of mobile business apps when they are ready. The first is to build a strong foundation by ensuring their network is ready. In particular they need to consider their LAN and WAN requirements around security, bandwidth and resilience.

For example, are their internal enterprise applications able to port to a mobile strategy? Can the applications and data be decoupled into a more modularised format? The most important move is to develop a long term vision of strategic growth. Then find a partner who can support this with a portfolio of mobile, wireless and security solutions, specialist expertise and an over-arching view of the current IT landscape and its future direction.

If the past few years have taught us anything, it’s that ‘business as usual’ just doesn’t exist any more. Companies need to be constantly updating and reinventing themselves to address their markets. Attracting talented, inspired and motivated employees is increasingly becoming the way that the most successful companies are going about this. Giving these employees free rein to communicate and work using the methods they prefer will become essential.

However, this creates security risks and great concern to the IT department supporting them. At the same time, the most forward-looking businesses are no longer just using mobility as an add-on to established business processes, but using it to change the way they operate and interact with customers and suppliers.

Building Your Own Apps would help address the significant security worries involved with both these scenarios, as well as the need for individuality and agility that the future will demand. Is it inevitable that in future businesses will be run on apps? It’s a natural evolution from BYOD – and with the right partner it’s certainly viable, affordable and secure.

With thanks to Calyx Managed Systems.

 

Gina Hutchings
 

Marketing professional with over 12 years experience specializing in digital marketing for the IT sector.