Connected Thinking

Many organisations have policies of issuing and supporting a mobile device for their employees. A great example is Western Union who are a US based financial services and communications company. The Western Union policy was to issue BlackBerry devices for its mobile workers. BlackBerry’s security features were the only ones that met the company’s standards and the policy was strictly enforced. Despite the recent explosion of Smartphones for personal use the company stuck rigidly to its policy. Then in September 2010 the new CEO, Hikmet Ersek, took control and demanded that he be allowed to use his iPhone for work. The demand coincided with a broader corporate strategy aimed at moving faster to offer Western Union’s famous money-transfer service on all mobile devices.

Reluctantly, the chief information officer, John Dick, was forced to comply. “We need to give our employees more freedom” Dick said at a recent industry conference. But he also acknowledged that it would take several months for the company to fully authorise and support the iPhone and Android devices.

The increased diversity, capability, and popularity of smart phones is leading to a fundamental change in the way mobile technology is being handled in large businesses. Once upon a time, you started a job and IT would provide you with a corporate-sanctioned computer and, for millions of employees the BlackBerry device became synonymous with mobile email. Most important, the BlackBerry gave corporate IT departments control over what employees could and couldn’t do with their devices.

The landscape has shifted dramatically over the past year. The explosion of new devices featuring high-resolution screens, engaging user interfaces, and access to entire app stores has ignited a revolution at the workplace. More and more companies have had to respond to the popular preference for BYOD (bring your own device) policies. Sometimes the change comes from the bottom up, but sometimes, as with Western Union, it comes from the top down. Either way, it often leads to a clash between freedom and security, a conflict that’s especially tricky now that mobile phones are used for both personal and professional purposes.

In some companies, the IT department won’t budge. ING Investment Management Services issued BlackBerry phones to more than 1,000 employees and prohibited the use of anything else for work. As a global financial firm that manages billions of its clients’ pounds, it is naturally concerned about data confidentiality, and it has spent years testing and implementing BlackBerry security functions. Its BlackBerrys run an app that monitors text messaging, in order to enforce a rule that employees cannot send texts unless they are travelling abroad. Employees’ use of instant messaging is strictly audited. But with the allure of rival mobile devices, “there’s constant conflict around here,” says Michele Thurston, ING’s BlackBerry administrator. “Sales and marketing want the iPhone because they want to do streaming video, which the BlackBerry can’t do.”

Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Android, and Nokia’s Symbian platforms have all made significant progress toward meeting such key enterprise requirements and support for the data synchronisation also offers many security features for email. They have also introduced remote data wiping and remote locking in case the phone gets lost. IT departments can also distribute and manage applications on the devices remotely.

With these improvements, IT managers have loosened their restrictions. A recent survey of nearly 200 enterprise IT decision makers by the research firm Yankee Group shows widening support for multiple operating systems. Those rules call for individual liability and corporate responsibility. Employees must be careful not to lose their devices, yet the devices must be equipped with features that let IT departments react quickly if they do.

The database software company Sybase recently implemented a BYOD policy, allowing employees to choose from a list of 20 devices. The employee pays for and owns the device; Sybase picks up the service fees and manages the data apps, such as email, contacts, and additional software, which can be used to wipe the phone if it is lost or stolen. The result is that nearly half of Sybase’s 4,000 employees have smart phones running the company’s work applications, according to Jim Swartz, the company’s CEO.

Under a BYOD device plan, the issue of who pays the bill is a big one. A company would typically pay for a certain number of voice minutes and an unlimited data plan for its employees. The wireless industry’s shift to usage-based pricing for data will require companies to develop new policies, since they will not want their employees downloading movies or games. Companies are looking towards giving employees a reasonable allowance to cover the work functions of a mobile device thus leaving the worker responsible for any additional costs.

App stores such as the ones on iPhones and Android phones have also helped IT departments, because any consumer-type applications can easily be billed to the user’s credit card. Business applications can be deployed outside the iTunes framework, so it’s easier to separate work and personal functions.

All of this further proof that organisations need to integrate mobility into their overall business communications strategy or otherwise you run the risk of these initiatives running amok. For example if you are in the financial services industry then you need to be aware that recent FSA regulation made it mandatory for FSA regulated firms, and those engaging in regulated communication, to record not only fixed line calls, but also calls made from mobile phone devices. Oh, and by the way this has to be implemented by November 14 2011.

This is an exciting time for the marketplace and plenty for you to consider on how this impacts your business communications strategy. If you want to know how this could enhance your business or see some of these solutions in action at the Kcom Customer Showcase Centre then please do not hesitate to contact me.

Brian found the examples used in this article at Technology Review

Roll up, Roll up – bring your own devices to work4.753