Getting a head start in BYOD

As BYOD gathers pace as a common practice in the work place, businesses looking to move in that direction are looking for tools that help make a reality of the many promises of ease of use and greater staff productivity. In their turn, vendors and service providers are starting to emerge with tools and services that aim to make the transition and on-going exploitation of modern tablets and smartphones a more straight forward move.

One of the latest is Dallas-based CompuCom Systems, which has come up with a new suite of services to support smartphones, tablets and other consumer and corporate technology devices. It provides a flexible mix of traditional onsite and virtual services to deliver increased end-user productivity and lower management costs.

According to analyst company, Gartner, the rise of ‘bring your own device’ programs is the single most radical shift in the economics of client computing for business since PCs invaded the workplace.

It is certainly fair to say that BYOD does present a number of new challenges to corporate IT departments, including how to enable applications, and access to corporate information while maintaining the same secure environment found with company issued devices.

“Anytime, anywhere, any device access to corporate resources is becoming a requirement of business users, not just a want. Enabling users in a way that is both secure and supported, provides the foundation for a radical shift in employee productivity,” said Sam Gross, Chief Technology Officer at CompuCom.

“As an example, we are enabling progressive companies by using ‘personas’ to associate a unique identity to end-users based on their role and needs. That persona traverses multiple devices and locations, and defines the services that user receives in order to optimize their productivity.”

The persona model is focused on aligning the end-user with the right set of services to optimise their productivity. The company uses a four-phase approach, coupled with a proprietary toolset to enable companies to implement a Persona-Based Modeling (PBM) framework within their organisations.

The PBM framework facilitates capturing, reporting, designing and implementing a persona-based services model. This realigns how end-user services are delivered to best serve the specific needs of their segmented user community. In addition, it also optimises total cost of ownership. In the future, the company envisages that personas will be leveraged across common industries and communities.

The CompuCom suite supports the full lifecycle of end-user devices, from acquisition through to disposal, as well as management of all BYOD initiatives. Its proprietary device management services and tools help reduce device management costs, improve business alignment, and increase security and compliance.

A set of Application Marketplace Services (AMS) gives users a clearer view of their IT environmentby allowing them to better understand their application portfolio, capabilities, and costs. It includes Application Rationalisation services, which can seamlessly gather application data and provide a structured methodology to make business decisions about the application portfolio. Application Management services are also provided to assist in packaging, testing and distribution of new applications to ensure they meet both technical and business needs.

The Workplace Services provided offer structured and flexible services for both end-user and device support. These include on-site services such as basic Install, Move, Add, Change, De-Install (IMACD) and Break/Fix services, as well as more complicated services such as print management, video surveillance technology support, and digital signage support. A range of specialty services available include industry-specific support, such as POS for retail organisations.

CompuCom can also offer advice and consultancy services to help companies consolidate support so they can improve the sustainability of their workplace solutions and gain greater control over costs and inefficiencies.

The company’s full IT outsourcing services portfolio includes Service Experience and Cloud Technology Services as well as IT outsourcing, staffing, and procurement services. It has been designed to deliver an `end-user in’ optimised service experience, as opposed to the `datacentre out’ technology-centric model that many IT service providers still deliver today.