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

Transformation: The topic of many, many conversations Forrester Analysts have with business and technology leaders everyday. But the definition and scope of transformation seems to vary widely depending role, title, industry, sphere of influence, and other factors. For example, here's a sampling of recent inquiry questions from Forrester clients to Analysts focused on transformation:

"How can we transform our customer experience globally to improve ROI?" (Customer Experience Leader, Telecommunications)

"How transformational is the value of social networking and social media to business?" (Marketing Leader, Financial Services)

"What are the key drivers of banking application transformation?" (Application Development Leader, Banking)

"How do we prepare IT skills for transformation as we move from in-house apps to SaaS and outsourcing?" (Sourcing Leader, Entertainment)

"How can we transform our data centers to operate more like a cloud services provider?" (Data Center Leader, U.S. Government)

"What is the business case for large scale desktop virtualization as we transform our computing environment?" (Workforce Computing Leader, Pharmaceuticals)

I guess I should have expected this (but alas I didn’t) – the Capita ITIL, the IT service management best practice framework, joint venture with the UK government wasn’t big news. If anything, the story made ripples rather than waves; and from a UK government “finances” rather than IT service management (ITSM) best practice perspective.

It’s interesting to consider why – particularly when enterprises are so adamant on requesting ITIL-alignment in ITSM tool selection RFPs. But first a few links:

• Capita and ITIL in the news.
• My quick blog from last Friday.

Information workers in organizations across Asia Pacific (AP) are increasingly using personal mobile devices, applications, and public cloud services for work. Forrester defines this as the bring-your-own-technology (BYOT) trend. This behavior is more prevalent among employees above the director-level (C-level executives, presidents, and vice presidents) than those below that level (individual worker, contractor or consultant and manager/supervisor). Data from Forrester’s Forrsight Workforce survey, Q4 2012 corroborates this trend in AP.

We believe that the BYOT trend will strengthen over the next two years in AP, primarily fueled by employees below the director level. Increasing options, quality and affordability of devices, apps, and wireless connectivity, coverage, and capacity will contribute to this expansion. In order to secure corporate data, organizations will need to:

• Develop Corporate Mobile Policies: Organizations must build cross-functional teams to plan their mobile strategies. This should include representatives from different LOBs like finance, HR, legal and sourcing. Moreover, the policy must clearly define guardrails to provide flexibility to employees but within boundaries and in compliance with local regulations.

• Identify Technologies To Secure Corporate Data: 29% of business-decision makers in AP report that the rising expectations of younger workers require businesses to push enterprise IT to keep technology current. This is why it is critical to identify both back-end and front-end technologies and suppliers that can optimize mobile device and application management in a secure manner. Focus should be on networking layer security and mobile device management solutions.