When BYOD first burst onto the corporate scene, many business administrators didn’t account for all the changes that needed to be made to ensure the initiative’s success. Especially since the practice meant an increased number of wearable devices were accessing the enterprise cloud via the company’s network bandwidth, many organizations ran into issues when it came to cloud performance and having adequate broadband resources.
However, BYOD is now nothing new for the business world, and the majority of firms are well positioned to not only deal with the mobility trend, but leverage it to their advantage. Now, though a new trend is emerging, bringing staffers’ mobile efforts to the next level.
WYOD: The new BYOD?
Technology expert and blogger Daniel Burrus is calling this phenomenon WYOD – Wear Your Own Device – and he calls it “an opportunity rather than a crisis.”
“Today, we have a new impending IT crisis, as well as an opportunity, that’s very predictable,” Burrus wrote. “Soon we will all be dealing with WYOD.”
There’s no doubt as to the truth of Burrus’ prediction about wearable devices making their way into the office. According to the Washington Post, approximately 1.2 million smartwatches were bought by consumers last year. Furthermore, this year’s sales have shattered predictions with a 250 percent year-over-year increase in the first quarter alone.
Planning for success
However, as Burrus pointed out, in order for these initiatives to be successful, particular planning is required. Just as BYOD created increased stress on network bandwidth as more endpoints utilized broadband resources, the same is sure to occur with wearable units. Employees will want to leverage their Google Glass and smartwatches to check their email, send messages to colleagues and access company databases, all of which require network bandwidth. Without the proper support in place, these activities will not only be impossible, all the benefits that wearable devices could bring to a corporate setting won’t be realized.
For this reason, business leaders must ensure that there is enough network bandwidth to go around – not only for BYOD, but for WYOD as well. Cloud performance will severely suffer without the proper broadband, rendering wearable technology useless in many cases.
Main benefit of WYOD: Increased productivity
Although, when planned out effectively, WYOD can open the door to myriad advantages for workplaces that support it. Adequate network bandwidth will guarantee cloud performance and the availability of mission-critical resources, and when armed with wearable gear, staffers will now have their hands free to tackle other tasks and boost their overall productivity.
“The promise: Wearing your tech should cut down the amount of time you spend as a smartphone zombie staring down at the palm of your hand,” noted the Washington Post. “Instead, you just tell the watch to send a text or open an app, and it will do it for you.”
This could mean great strides toward a more mobile, increasingly hands-free office in which employees no longer have their heads down and their faces lit by smartphone screens. Instead, these individuals can make better face-to-face connections with their coworkers, not to mention clients and partners.