BYOD: How Best to COPE?

[MichaelDortch]

First, some numbers you might find interesting, if not a bit frightening.

Forrester has publicly predicted that there will be one billion smartphones in use by 2016.

Some 350 million of these will be for work.

Some 200 million of those smartphones used at work will be worker-owned.

Can you say "BYOD," for "bring your own device?" If you're an IT person trying to manage the explosive growth of smartphones, tablets, and other mobile connected devices, you may fear that "BYOD" may stand for "begin your own demise," at least professionally.

Herewith, some glimmers of hope, derived from and inspired by the panel I moderated at Interop New York a few weeks ago, "Advances in Mobile Devices: Technologies, Products and Strategies." My savvy, eloquent, and darned good-looking panelists were Brian Katz, Director, Head of Mobility Engineering at "global and diversified healthcare leader" Sanofi, Jeffrey Schwartz, Executive Editor of "Redmond" Magazine, Philippe Winthrop, Managing Director of The Enterprise Mobility Foundation and the founder/instigator of The Enterprise Mobility Forum.

First off, there is no one way to manage BYOD support, generally or even at a specific enterprise. Sanofi's Katz said that he and his team are exploring several different alternatives simultaneously, which Winthrop referred to as "federated BYOD." As long as the various teams conducting the explorations are talking with each other and working toward an enterprise-wide approach, there's nothing wrong with multiple simultaneous explorations. But no enterprise should count on managing multiple flavors of BYOD indefinitely, without much pain and suffering on the part of IT and at least some of the users IT supports.

But the most potentially hopeful part of the discussion was initiated by the EMF's Winthrop, who threw another acronym into the mix. That acronym is "COPE," for "company owned, personally enabled." With COPE, the company owns, manages, and controls each device, as well as all of the corporate information on it or accessible to it. But the company also allows each user to install whatever personal apps and content they want on each device. (Your company is likely already doing this with the laptops it issues, almost all of which are running personal media players or social network clients alongside corporate applications and data.)
In addition to greater control over corporate applications and information, COPE enables companies to negotiate from positions of greater leverage with device providers and with wireless carriers. Which can make a lot more sense and save a lot more dollars than, say, reimbursing employees for what they spend on devices and carriers in many BYOD scenarios.

COPE also makes a lot of sense for enterprises seeking to implement consistent, proactive, and ubiquitous asset and IT service management. Which I infer most if not all ServiceNow clients are doing or planning to do. The combination of COPE and ServiceNow can result in more flexibility and freedom for users, easier provisioning and management of mobile devices for IT, and lower costs overall for the enterprise. All of which I infer most if not all ServiceNow clients would find…useful, at least.

Philippe delves into COPE more fully in a great EMF blog post you should definitely read. But whether or not you add COPE to your list of BYOD considerations, you should definitely make sure that all of your decisions regarding mobility support are themselves supported by solid, consistent, and comprehensive processes and policies. Which means your legal and HR teams should be involved alongside IT. And that users should have active, meaningful representation and participation as those processes and policies are developed and implemented.

Make no mistake. None of this is simple or easy. But careful planning, diligent exploration of viable options, and a strong, flexible IT management platform such as ServiceNow can make it all a bit simpler and easier. Good luck, and let me and the rest of the ServiceNow community what you learn and experience as BYOD support evolves at your enterprise.