end-user productivity

Deciphering Enterprise Mobility Acronyms

So many (enterprise mobility) acronyms, so little time. How do you know what they all mean and can deciding on a single acronym really communicate the responsibilities and policies of a enterprise mobility program? Probably not, take a read and find out the three most important elements to define.


When you start to looking into the best way to enable enterprise mobility, the first thing you will learn is there are a lot of acronyms that allude to a company’s policy such as:

BYOD: Bring Your Own Device

CYOD: Choose Your Own Device

COPE: Company Owned / Personally Enabled

COBO: Company Owned / Business Only

While the acronyms seem to be pretty straight forward, often, in this sea of acronyms, the water is fairly choppy. For brevity, you can pick an acronym to summarize your approach to enabling mobility for your business.  In doing so, it is really important that you make it clear what it means to your organization, to IT and to your end-users.

When you are defining the mobile program, make sure you are able to articulate the following:

1. When it comes to the devices that your users are going to use: what are the device options; who decides / picks the device; who pays for the physical device and who pays for the plan (voice / data / text, etc.)? Are you just talking about laptops, mobile phones and tablets? Does it extend to wearables?

  • Example, some companies give their employees a choice. You can use any device you want, but you have to pay for it. Or, if you want us to pay – you have a choice of these 2 or 3 phones. You also have to pay for the service, but we will reimburse you $100/month.
2. Who takes care of it? What happens when you need an upgrade, or it breaks? What if an employee is travelling for work and their device is lost or broken? Ultimately, who manages the devices and who is responsible for the support.
  • Example, in a BYOD scenario where an employee has selected their own device, is it the responsibility of the IT department to learn how to trouble shoot questions the user may have about their device?
3. Who manages the company IP on the device? What access does the device have to corporate data and applications? How is it integrated into the daily business and their workflows? What policies need to be put on the device to make sure the device and the data on it are safe?
  • Example, if the device is lost, can the company wipe the data stored on it? What if the user of the device has personal information and photos on the device that are now lost forever even if the misplaced phone has been found?

There are many questions and even more answers when you start counting all of the combinations.  However, it is important that IT, Management and end-users are all on the same page. We created an infographic you can check out here, that helps illustrate the different points of view between IT and the end-user on enterprise mobility and how it can create internal tensions.  If end-users can better understand the goals of IT (and vice versa) it can help everyone get what they need.

Download: Enterprise Mobility - The Great Divide

If you need help defining these policies for your business or would like to understand how technology can improve security, simplify management and improve the end-user experience, give us a call.

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