BYOD: Driving ROI with Enterprise Mobile Apps

There are multiple benefits for companies that launch BYOD (bring your own device) programs and distribute enterprise mobile apps. For example, enabling employees to become more productive while leveraging the mobile devices that are owned and paid for by employees. With the employee paying for most or all of the costs of the hardware, voice, data services, and associated expenses, companies that embrace BYOD programs can save a lot of money — as much as $80 per month per user, according to CIO.com. InfoWorld reports that 19,000 of Intel’s 100,000 employees participate in the company’s BYOD program. Intel’s BYOD program has generated $150 million per year in increased productivity (57 extra minutes of work output per day per BYOD employee). Intel receives $3 in returns for every $1 invested in BYOD, or roughly $7,500 per BYOD employee for a cost of $2,500 to enable, manage, and secure each device. The cost savings and productivity gains that are generated through BYOD efforts can be significant.

Of course, the kind of productivity gains and cost savings achieved by companies like Intel aren’t possible without providing employees with the right mix of enterprise mobile apps. This applies both to larger enterprises such as an Intel or GM as well as small-to-midsized businesses (SMBs). For wide-spread adoption of enterprise mobile apps, your applications must be useful for helping your employees do their jobs effectively. When employees use enterprise mobile apps for work, they access them in all sorts of places: at their children’s Little League games, in the food court at the mall, in airport lounges, etc. To help protect sensitive corporate data — as well as vulnerable customer data — companies can use mobile application management (MAM). Mobile application management enables IT to protect enterprise apps and data throughout all phases of the mobile app lifecycle — from development to deployment to app signing to inspection for security flaws and malware — while leaving personal apps and data alone. This level of application management is possible through a zero-touch security model that doesn’t require restrictive mobile device management (MDM) policies while protecting enterprise apps and enterprise data.

Meanwhile, mobile application management can be used to wipe all enterprise mobile apps and corporate data remotely from a lost or stolen device. Given the sensitivity of the data at issue, this is a critical capability. According to the Ponemon Institute, it costs nearly $200 per lost or stolen business record.