Ryan Jamieson

Love it or hate it, BYOD is here to stay

The increasing overlap between personal and business has given rise to the bring your own device (BYOD) approach in the workplace, which companies have been quick to embrace.

A recent survey conducted by Avanade regarding the consumerisation of IT, shows that nine out of 10 companies report the use of consumer technologies in the workplace and 79% of companies have started embracing it. According to Rudi Greyling, senior director of innovation at Avanade South Africa, local companies are following suit. “Employees are bringing devices such as smartphones and tablets into the workplace and they are asking for access. In return, the companies that embrace it say the greatest benefit is that their employees are more productive. The two biggest factors are that they can work or get access from almost anywhere and the employees are more willing to work after hours,” he says.

Will Hardie, executive head of Enterprise Mobility, a division of Vox Telecom, points out that more smartphones were sold globally in 2011 than traditional feature phones and more tablets were sold in 2011 than desktop and laptop computer sales combined. “With the ‘consumerisation of IT’ phenomenon that has been happening worldwide, CIOs and IT executives no longer have the choice to push back on the adoption of a BYOD policy.”

Will Hardie

Hedley Hurwitz, MD of Magic Software South Africa concurs, “You can’t fight BYOD. People see their mobile devices as representing who they are and they naturally use the device for personal and business purposes.”

According to Ryan Jamieson, director at Karabina Business Technology Solutions, “South African companies are seen to be more willing to adopt newer technologies and the technological trends that we see on many different platforms. The adoption process also furthers our understanding of these various platforms and their capabilities. However, there isn’t much trending in terms of laptops or desktops. It’s the proliferation of smartphones and tablets that are impacting and driving the BYOD trend.”

“Mimecast’s Generation Gmail survey focuses specifically on South Africans who display particular frustration with corporate e-mail restrictions,” states Kendal Watt, Mimecast’s senior pre-sales engineer. “The survey reveals that Generation Gmail workers will readily ‘work around’ these restrictions using personal e-mail accounts in order to remain as productive and flexible as possible.”

Rudi Greyling

With Internet use in South Africa growing exponentially, he continues, and e-mail being a core communication platform within companies, the challenge is to balance the needs of the empowered, demanding Generation Gmail users with systems and policies that maintain company control.

Says Bennie Langenhoven, managing executive of Tellumat Communication Solutions Companies, businesses are definitely embracing BYOD with the resultant improvement in productivity and employee satisfaction. “It makes sense for both parties,” he says.

However, he points out, with increasing mobility there will be challenges. ”One of the main issues is the sheer ubiquity of smartphones and other mobile form factors like tablet PCs and laptops,” he says.

According to Jacques van der Merwe, regional sales manager for Africa at Kaseya, “Companies are taking to mobile device management rapidly, and implementing security measures to ensure company data is secure from a mobile workforce point of view. With the cloud service uptake increasing in South Africa, it is ever more critical to manage mobile users working from home or on the road. Mobile device management is a concern for each and every IT manager and service provider, and rightly so. There are hundreds of unsecured mobile devices out there, and most organisations do not have policies in place to manage, secure and protect company information.

According to Greyling, security remains the biggest concern. “However, ensuring password prompts, enforcing device auto-locking, and encrypting connections and sensitive data can all be used to overcome these concerns. Storing as little as possible or no sensitive company data on the actual device is the primary aim.”

“Security is always going to be a bone of contention,” says Jamieson. “Any device that can electronically access the network will have security implications.”

Langenhoven believes the risk of unsecured mobile devices getting lost or stolen is very real and needs to be taken into account. “It is important to look at protecting confidential company information on the mobile device by password and using secure VPN connections when accessing the network from the outside. The ability to do a remote wipe or lock of the device would also be a sensible thing to do. Having said all of that, ultimately it boils down to the employee’s attitude and behaviour. If they don’t care about company information or want to deliberately make it available to third parties, there are lots of ways to do this. The best way to manage this is with proper usage policies and education of the employees in terms of the risks and best practices.”

With any BYOD strategy there are immediately two major considerations – integration and security, says Hardie. “Recent research has discovered that today one of the easiest ways to hack into a company’s infrastructure is through a smartphone or tablet that has access to the IT domain,” he warns. “So, in any BYOD strategy, the single most important point of departure is establishing a trusted device and, in turn, a trusted user.”

“The security implications are the same as for any unsecured device… bad!” states Hurwitz. “Currently, we try and address this with IT locking down notebooks, workstations, etc. on an individual basis. This same exercise becomes logistically unmanageable in the case of mobile devices where people may have two or more devices and they are bringing new devices to work far more frequently than desktops and notebooks. The solution is to secure devices on the fly using MDM (mobile device management) tools that can authenticate users based on a login linked to Active Directory or equivalent authentication sub-system.”

Hardie suggests the best starting point for the CIO in any BYOD strategy rollout or implementation is, first and foremost, integrating and securing the device itself. “Choosing a mobile device management solution provider that can agnostically interface with various devices and present a single seamless interface into the corporate IT infrastructure is one of the easiest and simplest ways of addressing these multiple device platforms. The MDM solution can also secure the device and user and has the ability to separate personal from company confidential information. Once the device is secured and the user is trusted, the IT department can set policies and standards with respect to user, Internet, e-mail access and mobile application usage.”

BYOD has undoubtedly brought about a change in the role of the IT department, according to Watt. “The new trend threatens to create havoc with IT, with too many devices to keep track of and the potential for data to leak from the organisation. It does, however, force a shift in mindset for the IT manager.”

He continues, “The IT manager has the opportunity to redefine his/her role as the custodian of corporate data, managing information, not devices. It is this shift in focus to managing data, rather than devices, that turns the headache into an opportunity. Cloud technology creates a shift from enforcer to enabler and CIOs should be aware of the opportunity this affords the IT department.”

According to Jamieson, there is a growing demand for corporate communication to be accessible via your own device, for instance, intranet on the iPad or timesheets on your smartphone. Providing applications that are more generically accessible (eg OS or device agnostic), will enable employees to increase their own productivity.

“A notable trend currently being seen in this space is the emergence of the ‘prosumer’. This new breed of enterprise worker understands what a user interface should look like (because they are using consumer apps on a daily basis) and they will no longer tolerate or readily adopt a drab and cumbersome GUI. In other words, even in the enterprise, when it comes to software, ‘looks’ are starting to count,” Hurwitz concludes.