Results from Forrester's Q2 2012 Forrsights Workforce Employee Survey show that more than two-thirds of North American and European information workers who use a computer for work an hour or more per day personally choose the smartphones or tablets they use for work, and 46% of information workers personally choose work laptops that are not on the company-approved device list. To address the increasingly complex mobile device landscape, many companies are deploying bring-your-own-device (BYOD) programs to support devices including smartphones, tablets, laptops or desktops. Successfully planning and implementing a BYOD program requires infrastructure and operations (I&O) executives to address the following four key issues.

1. Build Relationships Outside IT

Implementing a successful BYOD program requires cross-functional collaboration across many IT and business groups in the organization. The I&O team should take the lead in BYOD program development. However, I&O executives must collaborate with security and governance, sourcing and vendor management, application development, and enterprise architecture professionals to determine the correct strategy and tool set. It is also critical to include line-of-business executives, as well as legal and finance professionals, to develop corporate BYOD program policies and procedures.

2. Create A Shared, Multi-Year Vision

Proactively working with decision-makers to identify the potential ROI and impacts on corporate business processes enables the I&O team to create a consistent, shared vision of the overall goals and desired outcomes of implementing a BYOD program. This shared vision of the cross-organizational effects of the BYOD program ensures that line-of-business decision-makers and stakeholders understand what investments they must make to support the program.

3. Develop A Compelling Business Justification

With Bryan Wang, VP and principal analyst

How much would it cost to establish a taxi dispatching system in a city of 20 million people, with nearly 66,000 taxis jamming the roads? Consider that Singapore, with a population of  about 5 million, has spent tens of millions of dollars to build a customized system with screens and sensors installed in almost every taxi and a large-scale call center to support it.

Now with the wide availability and affordability of smartphones, entirely new innovative approaches that are light on infrastructure can be employed to reduce cost and time-to-value. A good example is a mobile application recently launched in Beijing called Didi Taxi that works like this:

•  Passengers and drivers download the app. There are two versions, currently available on both iOS and Android. Drivers download the app to accept orders; passengers download the app to order taxis.
• Passengers bid for taxis through their mobile phones. When a passenger opens the app, they see their current location on the map and the density of available taxis nearby based on the GPS tracking on both passengers’ and drivers’ devices. Passengers then use their voice to specify their exact location and destination, and — most importantly — how much extra on top of the metered fare they are willing to pay (normally ranging from $1 to $3).
• Taxi drivers confirm the booking. The system automatically broadcasts the message to all nearby taxis (within either a 1 km or 2 km radius) based on the density of nearby taxi drivers using the app. The first driver to respond within 90 seconds will get the order. If no drivers respond, the message goes out again to all drivers in a larger radius.

I recently bought myself a Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 running Windows 8 because I want a tablet device that can really run Windows and PowerPoint when I need them, and I have found all the iPad Office solutions to be lacking in some fashion. When I saw the new Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2, it was love at first byte.

Like in all relationships, some of the new has worn off, and since it’s “Internet time”, it has only taken a couple of weeks as opposed to years to see my partner in a more realistic light.

So, here is my list of the good and the bad (architecturally, structurally) and bugly (things that can probably be fixed).

The Good – Excellent Hardware, Fluid and Attractive Interface

There are many good things to say about this combination:

• It’s the lightest Windows device I have ever owned, and its general performance and usability is light years ahead of a horrible Netbook I bought for one of my sons about two years ago.

I’m very excited to kick off survey development for upcoming Forrester Forrsights surveys that will feature security content. Continuing on from previous years will be the Forrsights Security Survey. This is an annual survey of IT security decision-makers from North American and European SMBs and enterprises. New for 2013 is a Workforce Survey that will provide the (also North American and European) employee perspective when it comes to security and devices in use within their workplace. 

These surveys will be fielded April through May, and the results will make their way into published research this summer. Survey development starts now, and I would love to hear what you think about the proposed topics. What are some areas where you’d like to see us gather more data?

Note: I'd love for these surveys to eventually be global! Today we have global data within the Forrsights Budgets And Priorities Tracker Survey (this one goes out to IT decision-makers) and the Forrsights Business Decision Makers Survey.