'BYOD should be seen as a business enabling solution'

What are the possible challenges that are associated with BYOD implementation?

There are a number of challenges related to BYOD. It is very important to set right expectations to the business and users alike. Since mobile device and platforms are continuously evolving, it becomes difficult to keep pace and support these devices in the BYOD program. The backend infrastructure is often not ready to handle new devices/platform and there are integration issues.

Data security is one of the prime concerns and data loss/theft must be mitigated before announcing BYOD. The other challenges is to decide on what resources should be provisioned on devices, ownership of device, BYOD policy, user consent, scope and responsibilities of IT, business and end user to support the program. For our users who have been using Blackberry handset for last 4 to 5 years, we have been able to manage the multiple handsets in the Blackberry range of smartphones with different OS versions seamlessly without any concern on security.

How should it be dealt with by the CIO?

Senior management commitment is very essential. Clear strategy and roadmap must be defined and communicated to avoid any conflict that can happen later. The support teams must be geared up. CIO must take business into confidence and BYOD program should act as a business enabling solution rather than a solution of convenience. Mobility in enterprise is still nascent and its vast potential can be effectively exploited through developing and implementing enterprise mobility apps. This is going to change the way we conduct business.

How have you been able to tackle challenges at your organization?

One of the key success criteria is the senior management commitment and support. This has helped us immensely to drive this initiative across the group. Top priorities for us are data security, building enterprise app on SUP platform and encourage its usage to bring in efficiency and increase productivity in business.

Also BYOD program in our organization is not applicable for any smartphone or tablet. Only enterprise ready devices should be permitted within the enterprise for example, Samsung certified 'enterprise ready' devices. It is very important to make sure that backend infrastructure is ready to take on devices that are running on newer platforms. Also through detailed study, selection of proper solution and architecture design, issues relating to integration was minimized to great extent which in turn reduced project cost and implementation time.

What is the key learning from this case that you would like to highlight?

The general perception of BYOD is device management. Our initial challenges were managing mobile devices that access resources like email with risk acceptance. We soon learned and our requirements matured from a general device management to a more sophisticated 'on device' data protection, enterprise app, secure connectivity, data and voice usage visibility etc. We worked towards it and developed our back-end infrastructure to have these enhanced functionality.

In our current setup, we are utilizing both Blackberry Enterprise 5.0.3 and Express servers 5.0.2. Users are provisioned on either of the servers based on their role.

• Blackberry infrastructure enables us to utilize & implement various 'ready to use' policies like data encryption on SD card.
• Functionalities like remote wipe are being utilized for lost devices.
• The blackberry infrastructure supports multiple blackberry OS versions and devices of different screen size.
• Blackberry enterprise solution provides us with intuitive reports.
• HP ePrint is provisioned on BB for anywhere printing.
• Entrust Mobile Guard on BB provides 2 factor VPN authentication.
• Drona solution provides reliable live video streaming over 2G networks. It is used video organization announcements.
• Blackberry MVS solution saves international roaming cost by providing local extension in BB over Wi-Fi networks.

What would you advise other CIOs?

As known to everyone, strategy and roadmap is essential. One of the best approaches is to start small both in terms of deployment foot print and scope. Once you are comfortable, functionalities can be added on. Users might not like too many restrictions on their devices. It is a good practice to enhance protection and restrictions on enterprise apps rather than on device.