With the consumerization of IT, many large firm often do not have a choice but to open up the corporate networks to worker-owned mobile devices.
There are numerous cases studies and surveys that point to how the bring your own device trend has boosted performance and employee morale, but
BYOD has a hidden cost.
Virtual machine provider VMware Inc. however, appears to have bucked the trend by saving as much as $2 million with its BYOD program, according to this report from Computerworld.com.
Mark Egan, VMware CIO, said it had to learn the hand way though.
The company initially gave workers a choice to purchase their devices and placed all the employees on a personal liability and expense reimbursement program when the program began in 2011. The result was that VMware ended up spending approximately $172 per month per user in the United States and a lot of the devices, particularly iPhones, were reported broken or lost.
One of VMware’s most important moves to curb expenses was to determine which employee actually needed a mobile phone for work. Once, the list was done, VMware introduced two reimbursement programs: One for customer-facing employees and the other for non-customer facing employees.
Both programs did not include a stipend for buying devices. Instead, customer-facing employees are reimbursed up to $250/month for legitimate mobile expenses. Non-customer facing employees are reimbursed up to $70/month for legitimate mobile expenses.
VMware further cuts expenses by not providing technical support for employee-owned devices beyond configuring them for security and mobile device management tools.
Find out more about VMware’s cost cutting BYOD measures here