BYOD is not novel in organisations anymore. But has the logistics sector, particularly in the Middle East, fully adopted the ideology? The issue with security prevails, say experts. Logistics News searches for the answers
A courier person delivering a package and asking the customer to sign electronically on his abraded cell phone is something many have encountered. One might wonder if this person is using his own cell phone and this is what BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) or BYOT (Bring Your Own Technology) is all about the policy of permitting employees to bring personally owned mobile devices to their workplace and access company information.
According to Atiq Juma Nasib, senior vice president, commercial services sector, of Dubai Chamber, the value of the supply chain and logistics sector in the UAE amounted to approximately $25bn at the end of 2015. Nasib had expressed his views at the 8th Global Logistics and Supply Chain summit, held on 14 October 2015, in Dubai.
Moreover, the outlook for the sector in Dubai during 2016 appears to continue to be steady, as per Core -UAE Assoc. of Savills. To sustain such a steady growth and to stay ahead of the game, the logistics sector should and will adopt BYOD, which has a huge potential to transform businesses. By capitalising on BYOD, there is a big advantage to logistics enterprises that can benefit from lower upfront investment costs as additional hardware is no longer required.
With a plethora of devices such as tablets, smartphones and laptops that are used by people in their daily lives, several companies such as IBM, Cisco Systems and Microsoft Corporation, permit employees to bring their own devices to work, as there is an observed high productivity and low cost benefit. According to a 2016 survey of 800 security professionals worldwide, conducted by Crowd Research Partners (See box), 40% of organisations make BYOD available to all employees. Thirteen percent have no plans to support BYOD, 3% tried it but abandoned it later and 9% dont currently offer it. From these findings, it appears that at least one quarter of respondents are cautious when it comes to adopting the benefits of BYOD.
The top reasons, according to the survey, for allowing BYOD in an organisation were improved employee mobility (61%), greater employee satisfaction (56%), increased employee productivity (55%) and reduced cost (47%), whereas the top obstacle to BYOD adoption was security; 39% of respondents cited security concerns. But how well does BYOD serve the logistics sector?
Bring your own logistics
Growing competition, intricate delivery procedures and tighter operating margins have led the supply chain and logistics organisations to pursue ways in which they can take expenditure out of their business without forgoing operational efficiencies. As a result, a growing number of organisations in the region already have, or are contemplating implementing BYOD policies to help advance the technologies being used today and grow their operations without incurring large scale initial hardware costs. In the Middle East and Africa region, the BYOD market is projected to grow to $38.03bn by 2019, according to a report by MicroMarket Monitor.
However, its not all sunshine with BYOD, especially when it comes to the logistics sector. The question of reliability and dependability of devices out in the field lingers. Lost productivity from device failures is a huge business impact for supply chain and logistics organisations. Failure rates of 50% or higher are not uncommon for consumer-grade devices that are used for mobile or industrial business operations. The total cost of ownership for consumer-grade smartphones, tablets, notebooks and handheld devices is roughly twice as high compared with ruggedised devices.
For mobile workers, profitability depends on productivity, which further depends on reliability. In an office environment, a workers smart phone, tablet or laptop crashing would entail the ready availability of alternatives. However, for workers in the field, there are no such fall-backs. If their devices crash or malfunction, work grinds to a halt. Their customers are left waiting until a replacement device can be dispatched. But the obvious elephant in the room is security.
Security check
Palo Alto Networks partner, Aruba Networks, released a study in 2015 which highlighted that the adoption of BYOD policies by enterprises in the Middle East is accelerating, but not without ongoing security concerns.
One of the key issues faced by organisations that implement a BYOD policy within their workplace is around implementing security on consumer-grade mobile computers. If security policies cannot be applied consistently across all devices, the logistics enterprise is at a risk of a data breach or compliance violations, especially if mobile workers process payment or have customer data on their mobile devices.
Saeed Agha, general manager of Palo Alto Networks Middle East, says: The biggest challenge for a logistics solution provider, as for other organisations, is to offer and maintain the ability to provide safe access to critical business information for employees, regardless of where they are located and what device they are using to access the network. With a large number of personal devices and tools used over a very large demographic area, the critical need is to provide a consistent, controlled and secure network connection for everyone while not compromising on security.
Agha says that ongoing security concerns reflect a general lack of preparedness in managing employee mobile devices, which is holding back broader adoption. He adds that the UAE is among the top five at risk regions when it comes to mobile security. However, such concerns can be addressed through a combination of people, processes and technology.
He notes that organisations need to be able to give users full advantage of their mobility platform of choice, without introducing additional risks to the business. A key part of that challenge is enabling flexible mobile security options, depending on the device and use case; mobile security solutions should support different needs easily, Agha says, adding that while there are multiple considerations to secure mobile traffic, its the network where the security teams must start. He states that by retaining control of the network, organisations can make devices secure for all users in all locations.
Rabih Dabboussi, managing director and general manager of Cisco UAE, suggests a varied approach. He says: What we want to do is make sure everybody understands that security is essential, and it needs to be embedded in every solution, especially now, as we move from 15 billon devices to 50+ billion devices in such a rapid time.
Dabboussi adds: Because one is not always nearby to resolve a situation when a system is hacked, a managed approach is needed.
I call it a cloud-based approach, and its really a better solution, Dabboussi says, and this needs to be applied on a per-device basis.
Policy is the best policy
While consumer-grade devices used under BYOD policies can incur support costs and increase the total cost of ownership, they can help businesses reduce upfront hardware acquisition costs.
Experts suggests that when considering a consumer-grade device for a supply chain and logistics environment, businesses should factor the following:
(1) proper bar code scanning support for example, using a commercial imager with native bar code support and bridging technologies may be needed to support the consumer device,
(2) electronic signature capture,
(3) a handheld device that interacts with mobile printers for example, native drivers, bar code and graphics support play a role in how quickly invoices, receipts, work orders and other documentation are printed,
(4) appropriate device screen for different lighting conditions and, most importantly,
(5) a long-lasting battery life.
The aforementioned is not an exhaustive list; however, supply chain and logistics businesses looking to implement BYOD polices should also consider purchasing bridging technologies that assimilate common consumer devices into industrial environments to help mobile workers look up inventory, scan barcodes and securely process payments, increasing customer engagement and improving mobile point-of-sale. Tablet sleds also give workers access to transaction data via the Internet or mobile apps, providing an opportunity to upsell products and services to customers.
Aghas recommendation to the logistics industry is to adopt an approach for BYOD that has a robust strategy in place. He adds: Traditional firewall solutions classify traffic by port and protocol, which prevents an organisation from having visibility of application delivery. Visibility is important for an organisation with a large number of personal devices being used to access company and customer data via the cloud.
All said and done, experts indicate that BYOD is here to stay; the sooner logistics organisations take cognisance of the fact, the better.