8 Ways BYOA is Changing the Workplace eBook

BYOA Is the New BYOD. In the beginning, there was IT, and it was good. IT brought security and centralized control to companies. Then, laptops, tablets, smartphones and other consumer-friendly devices came to be. Employees responded with glee to these shiny objects, engaging in BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) at work. Sensing a disturbance in the Force, IT rushed to restore security through remote controls. Then, employees began engaging in BYOIT (Be Your Own IT), consulting Google for quick fixes and workarounds. IT took this new security threat in stride, restoring safety through remote scans.

Now, there is a new disturbance in the Force — BYOA (Bring Your Own Apps). Employees are using third-party apps and cloud services to get work done at home and in the office. And while employees are relishing the endless options the cloud offers, there are pros and cons you should consider. Read on for the top 8.

70% of employees access corporate data via their personal smartphone or tablet

67% of employees bring their own smartphone to work

20% of employees bring their own smartphone to work despite a company anti-BYOD

Source: http://ovum.com/press_releases/ovum-warns-byod-is-here-to-stay-and-urges-cios-to-respond-with-a-clear-strategy

BYOA Pro #1: Employee Engagement It’s no surprise that employees work faster and accomplish more when they are able to use an app or cloud service that they know and like. Employees can even lead others in their group or department to discover apps that will significantly improve everyone’s work processes. Aside from the productivity benefits of increased speed, both of these behaviors produce happier employees, who have a higher satisfaction level in their work. Plus, sharing apps to help co-workers increase speed and efficiency carries the added bonus of creating an atmosphere of teamwork.

Source: http://www.informationweek.com/mobility/smart-phones/byod-resistance-is-futile/240156173

“Trying to stand in the path of consumerized mobility is likely to be a damaging and futile exercise. Businesses are better served by exploiting this behavior to increase employee engagement and productivity, and promote the benefits of enterprise mobility.”

-Richard Absalom, Consumer Impact Technology Analyst at Ovum

BYOA Pro #2: Improved Productivity The modern world is addicted to instant gratification and investing in tools that improve productivity is one of the easiest ways to gain an advantage over the competition. The beautiful thing about BYOA is that it enables employees to work faster and smarter, producing better results and achieving goals with efficiency and speed. In fact, recent research revealed that approximately one out of every five small businesses is experiencing productivity gains of more than 30%, thanks to the increase of mobile work

Source: http://ovum.com/press_releases/ovum-warns-byod-is-here-to-stay-and-urges-cios-to-respond-with-a-clear-strategy/

25% of employees use their own enterprise social networking apps

22% of employees use their own file sync and share apps

30% of employees use their own IM/VoIP apps

BYOA Pro #3: No Train. No Pain. Once upon a time, companies spent a ton of money training new employees how to use each and every enterprise-centric software application. Unfortunately, updates to these apps often required significant amounts of time and money to then retrain all employees.

Thanks to BYOA, all the time and money wasted on training and re-training employees, as well as the cost of IT upgrading and maintaining old company apps is now saved. Because BYOA requires no training or upkeep, companies can reinvest their time and money on more important things, like growth strategies or better break-room muffins.

Source: http://www.tlnt.com/2013/01/23/new-study-says-spending-on-training-jumped-by-12-last-year

Businesses increased workplace training and development spending by 12% in 2012

U.S. companies spend an average of $706 per learner on employee training

BYOA Pro #4: The Least Known Super-Power of Business Apps? Affordability! Perhaps the biggest perk companies can take from BYOA is that most business apps offer a free individual account for new users, so employees can enjoy the benefits of these apps without costing the company money. Of course, free accounts typically offer limited storage or a certain number of uses before requiring a user to upgrade to a paying account, so if you have a lot of employees using an app, you’ll likely need to upgrade.

The good news is that most of the enterprise apps that require payment, charge a nominal monthly fee. For example, to provide employees with business level storage capacity from Box, you’ll pay just $15 per user each month. When compared to the costs of developing and maintaining proprietary enterprise apps, $15 per employee is a steal of a deal.

Source: http://blog.flurry.com/bid/99013/The-History-of-App-Pricing-And-Why-Most-Apps-Are-Free

BYOA Con #1: IT Must Manage BYOA At first, BYOA appears to save IT time. Employees are using apps that IT didn’t build or install, so they shouldn’t have to waste time managing them, right? Wrong. Because of the inherent security risks involved with storing and accessing corporate information in a cloud located outside the system, it’s imperative that IT get involved early on the BYOA train before it takes the whole company off track.

The right way to begin managing BYOA is to develop a strategy that protects corporate information while enabling employees to remain highly productive. To gain employee buy-in, be sure to include them in the process by gathering input about the apps they use or want to use. Then, establish a firm and friendly BYOA policy that explains security risks and provides easy-to-adopt rules and regulations for employees using outside apps.

Source: http://tabtimes.com/feature/ittech-apps/2012/11/15/enterprise-developer-says-2013-will-be-year-mobile-apps-businessSource: http://tabtimes.com/news/ittech-stats-research/2012/10/10/smartphones-tablets-and-byod-are-forcing-enterprises-improve

50+More than half of U.S. companies have made line-of-business apps accessible from mobile devices

73%of businesses rated increased efficiency as a key benefit of mobile computing

66%of workers use two or more devices for work each day, and 16% of those use up to four screens

BYOA Con #2: IT Must Provide Support for BYOA In addition to requiring an investment of IT time, smart BYOA management often requires IT to support a variety of non-standard devices and applications, which can get expensive. One way to contain these costs is to offer support for apps based on the percentage of adoptions. For example, if only 5% of employees are using a business app, like Hubspot, then it’s safe to say, IT can focus resources on more important things. But, if 30% of employees are using Hubspot, then IT might consider a plan to support the product.

Another way to address this issue is to create a company app store where employees can access the most popular apps and obtain low-level support from IT, or more complex tech support from the actual app developer/provider.

Source: http://tabtimes.com/news/ittech-stats-research/2013/02/13/1-4-enterprises-will-have-their-own-app-store-2017-byoa-nowSource: http://tabtimes.com/news/ittech-stats-research/2013/01/15/mobile-business-apps-were-worth-25-billion-last-year-will-be

1 in 4 enterprises will have their own app store by 2017

200 million mobile workers will be using mobile business apps in 2013

Revenue from mobile business apps is projected to reach $50 billion by the end of 2017

BYOA Con #3: Security According to Forrester Research, companies have listed improving or implementing mobile and app security as their highest priority for next year, and establishing a mobile strategy as their second highest priority. Securing sensitive corporate data inside a public cloud-based app presents a greater challenge than BYOD, but not an impossible one.

In addition to establishing and implementing acceptable use standards for BYOA, companies can use containerization to control network access. Containerization enables IT to “contain” (control) access to business apps by having employees use a single-sign-on password on their device or at the company app store to access pre-approved company apps. This practice enhances security by enabling IT to control which apps are approved for employee use and controlling whether or not an app is approved for copying, printing and pasting data.

Source: http://tabtimes.com/news/ittech-stats-research/2012/10/10/smartphones-tablets-and-byod-are-forcing-enterprises-improve

plan to improve or implement mobile security in the next 12 months

55%OF COMPANIES

46%OF COMPANIES

22%OF COMPANIES

believe improving mobile security is critical for their business

have implemented a mobile strategy for smartphones

52%OF COMPANIES

have implemented a mobile strategy for tablets

BYOA Con #4: Complying with Interstate Data Laws Employees who handle sensitive or regulated information, and who use the cloud to store corporate data may be unwittingly breaking state and federal data protection laws that govern where sensitive information can be stored. To ensure your employees stay compliant, make sure everyone in the enterprise understands what type of information is okay to store in the cloud and what information is not.

Source:http://cloudcomputingtopics.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Clouspectator.png

60% of server workloads will be virtualized by 2014

$160 Billion: the size of the cloud computing market by 2013

57% of cloud users maintain the cloud has improved their security

The Ultimate Pro CloudEntr — Simplicity & Security in a BYOA World We hope our eBook, “8 Ways BYOA Is Changing the Workplace” has inspired you to plan a good BYOA strategy for your company. To learn more about CloudEntr, download more eBooks, or view a demo, please visit CloudEntr.com/latest-resources.