In the recent years, there has been a talk of a trend within organizations, where employees are allowed to use their own devices in work. This phenomenon has been coined BYOD, or Bring Your Own Device.

The phenomenon has been a divisive one

One of the positive factors related to it is user satisfaction, which in turn results in increased productivity at work. However, BYOD has also presented challenges. Data administration has found it difficult to deal with information security of personal devices and their manageability.

Employees tend to decide what applications they wish to use in their device

Meanwhile, a new and even more significant phenomenon has sneaked in through the back door. Indeed, the device itself is not the source of better user experience and increased productivity.  These aspects are above all related to applications.

By bringing their own devices to work, users are also using their own applications in their work. This new trend is called BYOA, or Bring Your Own Application. This phenomenon has introduced an entirely new challenge. That is because now employees are bringing to work their own data models, data ownership and technical challenges related to licenses. This raises the question of how to implement the applications of employees into the company’s application architecture?

Own applications present both risk and opportunity

Many applications are available for licensing either for personal or business use. Another important aspect is the data model. Currently, it is common for employees to

enter client data into their phone or mobile device and then possibly save the data on their private cloud service. Does the data thus become the private property of the employee? A client registry saved in the Sales Manager’s device would likely not be subject to notifications by the personal data registry, back-ups or other forms of data life cycle management. And what about illicit use of licenses, particularly if they are used for the employer’s business.

Application portfolio management is the responsibility of application owners and main users

Application portfolio management is part of good ICT management practices, and one of its main objectives is to maintain the overall architecture. Application portfolio management is not expert level work; it is something that application owners and users should know.

As a tool for managing the life cycle of applications and their interfaces, the application portfolio is an efficient method for guiding and managing several organizational applications. Of course, the portfolio could be integrated with a specific classification for personal applications of the employees in order to ensure that the overall architecture can handle this new, inevitable phenomenon. How many of your organization’s employees are using a personal device or application in their work? This is a question you should be prepared to deal with – with or without an application portfolio.