When Leslie Fiering began talking to IT executives about the potential benefits of employee-owned laptops in the enterprise, the idea caused “fear, loathing and extreme distress in the hearts of CIOs”, she recalls.
But over the past two years, Fiering, a research vice president for Gartner, has seen the idea pick up speed as IT organisations test out employee-provisioned and owned hardware programs, “sometimes by choice, but often by necessity”.
It’s a logical step in the consumerisation of IT, say analysts. When people see the notebook they really want become affordable – and the company has put off that system refresh yet another year – they’re going to get it and find a way to bring it into work. “We get calls from CIOs all the time saying, ‘Help, one of my executives got a MacBook Air. What am I going to do?’” says Brian Gammage, Gartner vice president and fellow.
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A programme for employee provisioning is one way to gain some control over these issues. It can lead to greater user satisfaction and reduce total ownership costs between anywhere from nine per cent to 44 per cent, says Gartner. But figuring out the right parameters for a successful staff-owned laptop programme can be tricky.
At Sunoco, IT leaders were eager “to evaluate the risks and benefits of consumerisation in the laptop computer arena”, says Mark Quarles, manager of infrastructure services for the energy company. “Specifically, what are the total cost of ownership and manageability impacts?” Although the company didn’t expect material savings on the hardware, the hope was that ongoing support costs could be reduced.
The infrastructure services group had always provisioned and supported all hardware for Sunoco’s 14,000 employees, so its IT leaders had real concerns about reliability and security in moving to an employee-owned model. But in May, Sunoco took some baby steps toward examining the pros and cons of putting that purchasing power in the hands of its users.
Sunoco’s proof of concept for an employee-provisioning program involved six workers over three months. The infrastructure group told them they could purchase any laptop they liked with a company stipend of $1400 (£890).
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