Hail BYOC

It is a testing time for corporates, literally. And this is the time that
ignites the tech brains to come up with out-of-the-box thinking and innovative
ideas to bring down operational expenditures, while boosting efficiency
simultaneously. Citrix Systems, the software company that offers virtualization
for application delivery, is one such example that has done the out-of-the-box
thinking by leveraging on technology.

The company internally initiated a unique pilot project, Bring Your Own
Computer (BYOC), that not only addresses cost-cutting issue, but also helps to
raise productivity and keeps its staff happy.

The BYOC project was started in January 2009, across all Citrix offices
globally. Under this, Citrixs employees are allowed to use a personal laptop of
their choice at work and home. The staff enrolling for the BYOC program are paid
monetary allowances of up to $2,100 to buy their personal computers, along with
a three-year maintenance contract.

It is largely targeted at the companys young workforce. Citrix has 4,900
employees worldwide, of which 215 work in India.

The Bring Your Own Computer project not only addresses cost-cutting issue, but also helps to raise productivity and keeps staff happy Souma Das, vice president, Citrix Systems, India and sub-continent

Giving an insight, Souma Das, vice president, Citrix Systems, India and
sub-continent says, The BYOC project was born from customer feedback. Over the
years IT managers have discussed the possibility of reducing their manageability
issues on end-point devices and getting back to the basics of handling IT
infrastructure.

From an external perspective, the BYOC concept is new for Indian
organizations. There are three key factors for deciding BYOC adoptioncost
saving, manageability, and employee satisfaction. As the factors gain critical
mass in organizations, the adoption rate will increase, he adds.

He thinks that the BYOC adoption rate in India will pick up fast, as
organizations have started looking at virtualization as a key technology.

The rationale is that people are more comfortable and happy to work on
devices owned by them, and hence, tend to work more and take better care of
devices. However, it raises security concerns for accessing organizations data,
applications and systems on personal devices. Das explains that the BYOC project
is about giving access to an organizations applications in a secure manner to
employees working on any end-point device over any network:

The millennial generation coming into the workforce has its set notions
about IT capabilities and would demand access to official applications over any
device. As they are very tied to their personal devices, they also look for the
possibility of using the same devices in their workplace.

Das suggests that todays technologies like application virtualization,
desktop virtualization and network optimization make it possible to give access
to employees on a device of their choice by centralizing desktops and
applications.

The initiative helps organizations in three areasreduces total cost of
ownership (TCO) on purchase and maintenance of IT devices, increases employee
satisfaction levels with higher productivity, and lowers IT departments
responsibility of applications and desktops manageability.

With the BYOC project, an organization can save substantial amount in its IT
spend. Currently, the IT department of any organization spends around $ 2,500
over a three-year period on device purchase, maintaining and managing a laptop.
Das informs thatby offering stipend for laptop purchase along with a maintenance
program, companies can reduce end-point manageability by 20%.

Additionally, CIOs estimate that the IT hardware and software maintenance
and upgradation costs are 80-85% of the IT budget. Using the BYOC concept, the
organization can easily see 35-40% savings on these costs, Das concludes.

Pankaj Maru

maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in