Despite the fact that BYOD is often perceived as a way to reduce technology expenses, nearly three-quarters (73%) of IT managers expect that BYOD will have the opposite effect. The big fear is that BYOD will cause IT spending to spiral out of control.
That’s the news from enterprise technology vendor Damovo UK. The company recently surveyed100 IT directors from organizations with more than 1,000 users about their feelings on BYOD and how it is being implemented in their organization.
One major reason for potentially uncontrolled expenses boils down companies losing bargaining power with carriers as employees begin purchasing their own iPhones or Android handsets. While the cost of the device isn’t likely to be passed on to an employer, monthly costs for voice and data service may be a different story. With unlimited data plans slowly going the way of the dodo, many workers may not want to shoulder data bills associated with their jobs, which may lead to a shared expense model.
More importantly, nearly the same amount of IT directors (69%) said that cost savings around lower support costs are “non-existent” despite the perception that personal devices will reduce the workload of IT staff. The survey found that IT staffers expect to remained the first place BYOD users call for technical support.
In ranking the added IT costs related with BYOD, security lead the way with 44% of directors identifying it as the most expense short-term cost. Other major cost factors included providing IT and device support (26%) and improving network coverage (19%). While not broken out as a separate cost factor, 82% said that the time and effort to implement management systems and policies was a majort concern.
More than a third of IT departments offering BYOD options (39%) are doing so without an official policy of any kind and despite the hype surrounding app management and enterprise app stores, less that a third (29%) have begun implementing either.
Glyn Owen, Portfolio Manager, Damovo UK summarized some of the major themes from the survey.
These concerns highlight the need for organisations to establish their policy on BYOD as a matter of priority. As an increasing variety of mobile costs are claimed against employee expenses it is inevitable that enterprise costs will rocket. The use of personal devices in the workplace continues to be driven by employees rather than a defined business strategy. Indeed, over two-thirds (67%) of those IT directors surveyed admitted that supporting the CEO’s latest toys is behind many current BYOD agendas!
