Trend #1 :BYOD/BYOTech

As the leading government agency in Koala Land for Public Health it is important for us to be able to be respond quickly to public inquiries, as well as be able to be in the fields to work directly with our local health departments for training. But as or organization grows, more employees are in the need of these services and has become costly.  Blackberry cost for a growing number of employees has exceeded over $1,908,000 last year. The IT budget has been cut 15% for the next fiscal year and mobile demand looks to be up 25%.

The Kola Centers of Public Health has worked to secure efficient way of using expanding the use of mobile technology, while attempting to cut government spending. As, CTO, I have worked with an advisory group to create Eucalyptus Greenhouse Digital Government Strategy. Our recommendations are to implement a voluntary Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) program. This program should meet the urgent IT budget challenges. To encourage participation with this program, different incentives were offered to employees. One of the main incentives was increased telework days, which also coincide with the GoGreen efforts.

The BYOD service offering was established to allow secure access to KCPH email and the KCPH intranet from your Personally Owned Equipment (POE) using the Leaf Technology mobile application.

Key Features:

1. Encrypted connection to KCPHMail servers
2. Wireless synchronization
3. Access to up-to-date messages, attachments, calendar, and contacts
4. Secure Browser provides access to the KCPH intranet
5. Remote data wipe capability for Leaf Client data only
6. Password policy enforcement

There are some challenges that have been brought up by employees that we will need to revisit. Some employees are concerned that while the organization will be saving money, they will see increased data charges on their personal bills. Also the software client may be considered corporate data and not personal, so the employee may be forced to upgrade service agreement. We may consider having a flat rate stipend that will offset the cost. While this will still cost the organization money, it will be considerably less than having to pay for equipment and a full account.

KCPH has experienced positive saving with reductions in service plans and hardware maintenance.