Bye BYOD, Hello CYOD!

BANGALORE, INDIA: Many enterprises in India have experimented with Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) that allows employees to bring their personal computing or mobile devices to work.

The BYOD policy, however, comes with its own set of challenges for organizations like loss of control over devices and increased risk of data theft or loss among other factors.

Choose-Your-Own-Device (CYOD) overcomes the limitations of BYOD and builds upon its advantages. A CYOD policy allows IT managers to provide their employees with a menu of devices, all of which the organization will support. CYOD, therefore, gives employees a real choice in their preferred computing or mobile device, while still limiting the variety of devices that the IT department needs to work with.

Leo Joseph, head enterprise sales at HP-PPS India, shared his insights on the emergence of Choose-Your-Own-Device (CYOD) movement. Excerpts:

CIOL: BYOD policy is widely adopted for few years now. Do you see a need to look around the policy at this time?

Leo Joseph: For most of the organizations, BYOD has come to mean allowing a seemingly endless array of devices across multiple operating systems, while maintaining a high level of service provisioning to all users at the same time.

Many organizations encouraged BYOD early on as an employee benefit without fully realizing the gravity of managing multiple devices and platforms. The idea was compelling in principle; many employees demand to have a smart phone, tablet or notebook of their own choice and letting them bring their own device to work was seen as a powerful employment benefit. It was seen as a goodwill measure towards employees.

However, the reality turned out to be a lot different and BYOD brought along a new set of challenges. To keep costs low, IT managers have to ensure that they can securely onboard new devices and quickly identify and resolve problems. For users bringing their own devices, there are complications regarding support and what happens when a device is replaced, lost or stolen.

BYOD has often been a factor behind inadvertent violation of rules, regulations, trust, intellectual property and other critical business obligations. From an organization's perspective, BYOD can lead to loss of control, impact your network availability, and result in increased device management costs.

With all of the challenges BYOD poses, it is high time that organizations revisit their BYOD policy. Some of these challenges can be overcome by finding a middle ground between BYOD and offering employees their choice of device from a limited range of organizationally-supported devices - in effect letting people choose a device of their liking.

CIOL: How do you see the emergence of Choose-Your-Own-Device (CYOD) movement?

LJ: The concept of Choose Your Own Device (CYOD) has allowed IT managers to provide their employees with a menu of devices that organization is prepared to support. CYOD, therefore, gives employees a real choice in their preferred computing or mobile device, while still limiting the variety of devices that the IT department needs to work with.

In this way, CYOD bridges the gap between the unregulated device choice and the IT department's need to manage and secure the organization's IT assets.

CYOD standardizes security and management over a range of IT-approved devices. It can help businesses manage the deployment of multiple device options with the right configurations easily. The CYOD phenomena also provides a credible alternative to Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) concept.

CIOL: How is HP helping employees and organizations in finding a device that best meets the needs of an individual user?

LJ: HP recognizes the fact that the users' expectations from their computing devices are constantly evolving. We are committed to bring new innovations to market that are designed to meet the still-evolving needs of users. Our products continue to be at the forefront of technological innovation and combine form and function; style and performance.

HP also offers industry's broadest PC portfolio across desktops, notebooks, workstations, convertibles, tablets, hybrids and AiO-with a device for every user's need. Our market leading position in India is further evidence that HP's PCs offer a compelling proposition to all organizational users - whether their organization has adopted BYOD or CYOD policy.

CIOL: What are your thoughts on the acceptance and advantages of CYOD?

LJ: CYOD not only overcomes the limitations of BYOD, but it further builds upon the latter's advantages. A CYOD policy allows IT managers to provide their employees with a menu of devices, all supported by the organization. When organizations choose CYOD, they ensure that only the most up to date and secure versions of operating systems and apps are accessed by all employees. It is a win-win situation for employees - who get to choose a device of their preference - and the IT manager.

Also, by overcoming the unique set of challenges that BYOD comes with, CYOD is definitely the next step in procuring client PCs for any progressive organization.