Results from Forrester's Q2 2012 Forrsights Workforce Employee Survey show that more than two-thirds of North American and European information workers who use a computer for work an hour or more per day personally choose the smartphones or tablets they use for work, and 46% of information workers personally choose work laptops that are not on the company-approved device list. To address the increasingly complex mobile device landscape, many companies are deploying bring-your-own-device (BYOD) programs to support devices including smartphones, tablets, laptops or desktops. Successfully planning and implementing a BYOD program requires infrastructure and operations (I&O) executives to address the following four key issues.

1. Build Relationships Outside IT

Implementing a successful BYOD program requires cross-functional collaboration across many IT and business groups in the organization. The I&O team should take the lead in BYOD program development. However, I&O executives must collaborate with security and governance, sourcing and vendor management, application development, and enterprise architecture professionals to determine the correct strategy and tool set. It is also critical to include line-of-business executives, as well as legal and finance professionals, to develop corporate BYOD program policies and procedures.

2. Create A Shared, Multi-Year Vision

Proactively working with decision-makers to identify the potential ROI and impacts on corporate business processes enables the I&O team to create a consistent, shared vision of the overall goals and desired outcomes of implementing a BYOD program. This shared vision of the cross-organizational effects of the BYOD program ensures that line-of-business decision-makers and stakeholders understand what investments they must make to support the program.

3. Develop A Compelling Business Justification

The BYOD business case must include insight into the financial investments, personnel requirements and other resources necessary to deploy and maintain the program. Key cost categories include:

— Network infrastructure costs and wireless service investments. Each new device represents a potential new connection to your network, which can significantly impact the company's wireless guest access strategy.

— Mobile device hardware and mobile device management solutions and subscriptions. I&O pros must determine which mobile devices and platforms they will support in their BYOD program, whether the firm will provide a stipend, and what level of access they will provide to corporate applications and data.

— Applications and software investments. Anticipate additional mobile application management and security costs, including client access licenses (CALs), and maintenance fees associated with these solutions, which may be required for employees to access corporate software and mobile applications.

 It is even more important to identify and capture a comprehensive set of expected benefits from deploying BYOD programs. Key benefits to evaluate include:

— Enhanced productivity. The leading benefit firms achieve with a BYOD program is increased worker productivity. Productivity efficiencies occur when employees use mobile devices to communicate and collaborate more frequently, from any location, at any time, using any device.

— Improved line-of-business process efficiencies. BYOD programs enable employees to spend more time completing their daily activities. Each line-of-business benefit is aligned with specific tasks or processes that workers in particular roles complete as part of their routine activities. Examples include: improved ability to manage and distribute field service personnel, and reduced time to complete processes that historically were paper-intensive.

— Increased revenue. Providing sales representatives with access to mobile contacts, directories and sales-order applications on their personally owned devices means they have more time to spend with customers. Thus, each sales rep can manage more accounts, which increases the amount of potential revenue per sales rep.

4. Segment The Workforce And Factor BYOD Participation Into ROI Calculations

It takes time for employees to become comfortable with adopting a BYOD program. I&O execs must ensure that the adoption curve takes into consideration the types of roles within the organization (e.g., senior executives, marketing, field service, customer service, etc.) who will participate in the BYOD program, as well as the rate of adoption among each of these roles.

I will provide more details on this topic at our Forum For CIO, EA, Infrastructure & Ops, Security & Risk, And Sourcing Professionals in Washington, DC on May 6th and 7th. I hope you can join me there, but in the meantime, I'd welcome your thoughts and feedback on how your firm is capturing the value of BYOD programs.