Remember several years ago, when “bring your own device” (BYOD) to work created security challenges for CIOs? Yet smart tech leaders realized personal devices were here to stay. Embracing BYOD presented opportunities to both rethink their security models and accelerate efforts to deliver more consumer-like applications to their increasingly mobile workforces.
How we work continues to change, partly fueled by an increasing number of younger people in the workplace for whom using technology to communicate via a multitude of channels is a sixth sense.
The result is CIOs are now dealing with BYOC—“bring your own collaboration.” In many ways, the same forces that married mobile devices and enterprise applications are powering BYOC: employees want a frictionless and open experience. That’s important to recognize, as we should always be on the lookout for better and more creative ways to structure and engage our workforces.
Still, CIOs are challenged to bridge the divide being created by BYOC, where the number of platforms to choose from is increasing exponentially. Already, many collaboration platforms make their way into the enterprises as freeware or under-the-procurement-radar charges on someone’s corporate credit card.
Without a good strategy for taming this phenomenon, organizations may find themselves mired in increased technical debt, workplace friction, operational costs, security risk, and ironically, new barriers to collaboration. So how do we go about managing BYOC?
Consider these five areas: