Beware: BYOA May Rival BYOD as IT Issue

There has been a lot of discussion about the BYOD movement (Bring Your Own Device) where people are getting their own smart phone and/or tablet. Well, I think the complementary to that may be just as big. This opinion is not based on any research, just a number of conversations I have had recently.  Now I am certainly not claiming to be the first to raise the issue of people bypassing IT to use apps from the consumer Web or elsewhere, I am just suggesting a label to help focus the issue and put it parallel to BYOD. I Googled it and did not find anything. So maybe you first heard the term here?

One example is when IT invests in an expensive document sharing system and employees use Google Docs on their own instead. Yammer got some of its early users this way.  One problem becomes security but another is the chaos that can result from the uncommon data structures of the different tools. I think IT and even business unit leaders need to be worried here. I could raise more difficulties than BYOD. However, just like BYOD, you cannot really legislated this away. Employees can vote with their digital “feet” if you do not give them the tools they want. They best solution is to involve employees in apps decisions and deployments. This has always been a best practice but it is even more important now. 

 

Comments

[John Maloney]

Wait a second, I thought competition was good for business?

Recall, the mission of any biz is not to standardize on apps or lower cost. That may be the IT mission, but it is not the business mission.

IT makes bonehead 'strategic' decisions all the time. Look, IT serves the business not the other way around. Why should business leaders be hostage to IT offerings that aren't working for them and cost too much?

The internal IT units need to compete in the IT marketplace just like everyone else. The hegemonic rule of the imperial IT dept is waning.

Isn't democratization of IT a good thing? BYOA is positive development and should be embraced and encouraged by the IT dept. Sure, it may present some challenges for security, standards, performance, etc., but these are precisely the things IT is good at.

Business application leadership MUST originate from the business as you implied. No more bogus lip service from IT. No more dopey discussions about IT 'alignment' or 'leverage.' It's phony and old hat, from another era, when IT was scarce, expensive, difficult...

BTW, BYOA is a modest development. Businesses are really pursuing BYOC -- Bring Your Own Cloud. This is an exciting development that may further refine and focus the ever-diminishing role of the traditional IT department.