Why BYOD may not be as cost effective as perceived

By Darshik Jariwala - December, 26th 2013

Although security remains a prime concern for any organization moving to BYOD, some companies may as well consider the expenses. Expenses incurred not only during the transition from company provided devices to employee owned, but expense the employers will be subjected to in the long run.

For any company considered falling under the medium to large scale league, retracing wont be a feasible option once BYOD is embraced. Although it is not an impossible task, but it can be quite chaotic to say the least.

According to a survey by Gartner, 38 percent of companies will stop providing devices to their employees by 2016. The ever growing adoption of smartphones using Android and iOS where the users have numerous apps which require internet connectivity have increased exponentially in recent times. It may not be too long before the employees’ phone bills run into an amount where the expense handling for the employer may eventually spiral out of control.

Even though the company saves the cost of the devices once the employees start using their own, it stands to lose the money saved on buying the devices in bulk (which it may not realize until later). Not to forget the special discounted tariff rates for the corporate. Employees misusing the voice and data usage citing it was pertinent to work, new tax liabilities varying from country to country, the cost of MDM software, insurance, helpdesk support for variety of devices used and its cost; are some of the areas where controlling expenses could be a challenge for an organization.

The reviews after deploying BYOD so far appears to differ from company to company. Intel, for instance, vouch for the fact that they have indeed saved money as well as increased the productivity measure. In a report Intel published this year, they say employees report a saving of an average 57 minutes daily, whose total amounted to 5 million hours in 2012. Cisco had conducted a case study in a survey with surprising responses. “Cisco IBSG estimates that the annual benefits from BYOD range from $300 to $1,300 per employee, depending on the employee’s job role”, said Cisco.

Contrary to that understanding, Nucleus Research said in their report that ROI of BYOD is being confused with such “feel-good claims around productivity”. A company lacking a proper “financial foundation” may not find the similar ROI. Nucleus Research insists that a company must find out the benefits from byod and the expenses they will have to later manage as BYOD costs could vary from company to company.

Photo Credit – Intel Free Press/Flickr