In 2008 Citrix introduced a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) program to its worldwide employee base. Already a leading provider of virtualization, networking, collaboration, and cloud technologies, Citrix set the stage for their IT support teams to begin embracing the transformation taking place around the consumerization of IT at the support level. That support transformation was manifesting itself in different ways. Business leaders were purchasing consumer based hardware for home use that offered a more rich, self-service experience around selection, choice, price, delivery, and setup that did not always reflect their corporate IT experience. Strictly by the numbers, it could be said that employees were happy with IT support services. FCR, Abandonment Rates or customer satisfaction were meeting or exceeding stated SLAs. However, just below the surface employees were voicing a general discontent that the consumer experience did not match up with an anonymous IT hiding behind a ticketing system, militant desktop standards, located in areas that limited IT support access or having to surf an endless series of support services via the web.
Informally BYOD was already prevalent across the organization in two areas; one, hundreds of employees worldwide connected to the Citrix network every day via Citrix Receiver from their personal home devices, and, two, during mergers and acquisitions the IT teams delivered either Citrix Receiver or XenDesktop to every acquired desktop on day one. With IT having no visibility to the home or M&A devices both of these activities highlighted that devices were no longer relevant as they once were in the support structure.
The program offered in 2008 provided full-time employees with a choice of receiving the standard corporate IT managed laptop or using their own personal device – either a PC or Mac. As a BYOD participant, the program paid a $2,100USD stipend minus applicable taxes in the form of a bonus. This was reduced in 2016 to $1,500USD to align with internal pricing for our Citrix-owned and managed devices. The employee can either purchase or use an existing personal laptop with the stipulation that they have a vendor maintenance program for the duration of their 3-year enrollment in the program. The employee is expected to stay enrolled in the program for 3 years. At the end of the 3 years, they can re-enroll with their manager’s approval. If a participant leaves the program within 1 year of their enrollment date they are required to reimburse the remaining stipend prorated over the months remaining in the first year. If they leave the program in years 2 or 3 they are not required to reimburse.
Across the IT support teams, reactions to BYOD were mixed. Some welcomed the approach, others believed that users would not be able to manage on their own without some level of IT involvement and others feared that it meant an end to their jobs. This last point drove a review of hardware-related incidents to understand the number of hardware tickets/employee/year and what, if any, impact it would have on our desktop engineering team. The ratio of hardware to total tickets proved to be significantly low. This could be attributed to a 3-year vendor warranty standard for Citrix-managed devices and little if no client/server application installations on the device. All critical and non-critical business applications were delivered virtually thereby reducing complexity at the device.
The Program
How to embrace consumerism to ensure the BYOD experience was easier, simpler and successful? From the onset, it meant abandoning existing support mechanisms and methods to take a fresh perspective on the customer experience. To be an IT service offering providing choice to the employee it reasoned that:
- The employee chooses the laptop: Of the participant mix at Citrix, it is an even split between Mac and PCs. Since the program introduction, there has been an explosion of personal and Citrix-owned tablets and mobile devices. Regardless of the device, the virtual experience is the same.
- Same experience as a managed device: This translated to providing support for Citrix Receiver, Citrix provided anti-virus (or one of the participant’s choosing which is not supported) and Internet connectivity. As mentioned hardware was not included. As the device belonged to the participant no systems management software was installed.
- Reduce dependency on IT: IT support was challenged with the task of rewriting support documentation from step one to completion. While existing documentation was good it fell short in providing an employee a thorough end-to-end walkthrough. Getting this right was instrumental as it made no sense to offer a program and then have to staff to support it. Currently, 10% of one FTE per month is needed to maintain the BYOD website and to do payroll submissions.
- Self Service via a BYOD website: In addition to support documentation, the website provides comprehensive downloads, employee purchase programs, hardware discounts, and a BYOD BLOG plus discussion board.
- Control the service, not the hardware: Earlier it was mentioned about maintaining device standards to drive service consistency and support. Trying to control the proliferation of devices in the workplace is challenging at best. As a service provider, IT support determined that better to be in the yes business than the no business. Offer a stellar customer service, and through virtualization eliminate worries specific to hardware device types.
- Simple to participate: Participation by a fulltime employee requires manager approval. It is stipulated that the employee must already have a Citrix-managed laptop (which is returned when joining the program) or be a new employee. In the early stages of the project the team started down the path of defining participation based on job role; whether the employee was a knowledge worker, task worker or road warrior (perhaps traveling 10% or more). It became apparent that it would be challenging at best to have someone define their role and even more so to base participant approval on the amount of travel or particular job function. This approach was subsequently abandoned.
With the BYOD experience defined the project had 5 key milestones to complete:
- Survey employees
- Determine a stipend
- Review of Corporate Policies
- Review Security
- Identify Program Rules
1. Survey Your Employees
A pre-pilot survey gauged employee reactions to a BYOD program. 23% of employees responded. Results helped to understand why or why not the program would be of interest, it identified elements that influenced participation and drove recommendations of what people would want from the program. Of those surveyed the majority were enthused that there was choice outside of the current IT offerings. 12% already used their own device for some Citrix work. There were those that were happy with an IT-supported device but many were willing to take on the responsibility of managing their own device. 54% of employees believed that their productivity would increase with only 11% of managers agreeing with that finding. Prior to pilot a lot of time was spent theorizing the appeal to generation “X” or “Y”. This never played into the final adoption. However, the program is offered as one of many incentives when HR is recruiting talent. The 1,300+ participants span a broad age group and the real draw is a simpler and easier IT.
2. Determine a Stipend
To determine the stipend amount existing device costs including device procurement, imaging, security, deployment, monitoring, and maintenance were factored in. Costs for our middle tier laptop over a 3 year period fell into the $1,600 - $1,700 range. The intent of the stipend after taxes was to allow program participants to purchase a laptop that was comparable to a Citrix-managed device and for Citrix to realize savings of 18%. At $1,500 with an average 35% tax rate applied participants could expect approximately $975 to go towards a device if they choose to purchase new. Taking $975 as the base amount the team then compared against consumer choices on the market to determine that it was reasonable that an employee could purchase the minimum standard config. If they wanted a better processor, more memory to name a few then they could pay out of pocket.
The employee survey provided insight into the method of payment such as lump sum or installments. When asked whether employees would participate if paid in installments versus a lump sum here was a 47% decrease in Yes responses with payments/installments. Survey comments also reflected a strong desire for upfront dollars.
A couple of keynotes regarding the stipend and manager approval:
- A single worldwide stipend makes it easier to manage but that for those countries (e.g. Germany) with higher tax rates it means that the employee receives less after taxes. A better approach would be to offer regional (EMEA, Pacific, Americas) stipends. Per country was explored but simply too much overhead.
- Time the manager approval to the life cycle or depreciation of the company-owned and managed device. If similar to Citrix, with an asset fully depreciating over 3 years it ensures the device is near end of life. While the approach slows adoption rates it is a more measured approach in line with budget and ensures the asset is no longer depreciating.
3. Review of Corporate Policies
The Citrix BYOD policy is less than 2 pages. Our focus was to keep the rules the same for all with the same policies in effect for both Citrix-managed and BYOD devices. HR, Legal and Finance reached a consensus that all corporate policies ranging from the code of business conduct, security, corporate governance, and intellectual property to name a few all still applied. The only consideration was the device itself. As Citrix no longer owned the device in the event of litigation the employee would need to be subpoenaed to gain access to their device.
4. Review Security
As mentioned existing corporate security policies applied whether the employee had a Citrix-managed or BYOD device. On the device side, there is the antivirus and two-factor authentication. Leveraging vendor offerings antivirus is offered free to participants should they choose. Enhancing security further leveraged, Citrix Access Gateway SSL VPN coupled with perimeter firewalls, Intrusion Detection and Prevention (IDS/IPS), web filtering and overall threat management mitigated risks.
5. Define Program Rules
To keep the program crisp and easy to follow there are 10 program rules:
- Manager’s approval is required
- $1,500 stipend (minus applicable taxes) for a laptop and 3-year maintenance
- If you leave the company before 1 year, the stipend is pro-rated
- Return your managed laptop to your manager
- BYOC hardware issues are addressed by the vendor
- Antivirus required on all BYOC laptops
- Remote connection through Citrix Receiver /Access Gateway
- All apps delivered (online and offline) from the datacenter
- Provision apps through Receiver™
- All existing corporate policies apply
BYOD at its very core enabled Citrix IT support to begin to revisit and to reinvent their user experience. It is not perfect but by adopting a consumerism approach it opened opportunities to change how they did the Windows 7 desktop refresh as an example. Several years ago, the team offered the upgrade as either a fully automated self-service option for employees to do themselves or by IT by request it was a good test to see if the consumerism lessons learned from BYOD held true. Of the 4,800 desktops refreshed in the first 3 months, 675 were completed by IT support and the remainder by employees with no reported data loss. Again, the lack of complexity at the desktop because of virtualization and a consumer approach drove that success. Another consumerism example is the Citrix IT storefronts that the worldwide IT support team began opening in 2010. Currently, they have stores in Bangalore, Santa Clara, Fort Lauderdale, Raleigh, and others.
The transformation to the consumerization of IT for Citrix IT support continues to evolve and take shape. Programs like BYOD, IT support stores and leveraging our own products has been a catalyst that is pushing IT support from the back streets onto the main street. A place where we can listen to our employees, align to their day-to-day work schedules, anticipate the next consumer trends and break out of a comfort zone to deliver a great customer experience.
Originally written by Shawn Genoway for the May/June 2012 issue of HDI SupportWorld. Updated May 2017 to reflect BYOD program updates and changes.
