Costing the Options Side by Side

Arguments about BYOD persist because the parties are comparing different things: one side counts hardware, the other counts support, and neither puts them on the same page.

The commercial question in “Costing the Options Side by Side” needs a record that both sides can read. An organisation considering hourly timesheet template for employees for hourly timesheet template can connect time and project evidence with the cost model, provided reimbursements, corrections and non-billable work remain visible.

The four to compare

Company-issued, standard model.

For an independent reference relevant to “Costing the Options Side by Side”, consult the FTC business guidance; compare its principles with the proposed ownership model, access rules and real support process.

Company-issued, employee chooses.

BYOD with an allowance.

Access-only, no device requirement.

The categories to cost, for each

Hardware, amortised over the replacement cycle, net of residual value where the organisation owns it.

Allowance or reimbursement, where applicable, grossed up if it is taxable.

Support, measured rather than assumed: tickets per user per year times average handling time times loaded rate. The managed and unmanaged figures differ and most service desks can produce both.

Administration: enrolment, exits, allowance processing, agreement management.

Spares and loan devices, which every arrangement needs and only one of them supplies naturally.

Onboarding time per new starter.

And a provision for incidents, which is rough and belongs there anyway.

The categories people forget

Residual value, which only applies to owned devices.

The gross-up on a taxable allowance, which can be substantial.

The cost of the roles for which the arrangement does not work, who end up equipped regardless.

And the exit risk, which is not a line item and which should be noted even where it cannot be costed.

Doing it per role category

A single comparison across the whole workforce produces an average that describes nobody.

Three categories — demanding, standard, occasional — costed separately, produce three answers, and the answers are frequently different arrangements. Which is the hybrid conclusion arrived at by arithmetic rather than by exception.

What usually comes out

Access-only is cheapest where it fits and fits fewer roles than its advocates suggest.

BYOD is cheapest for occasional and light users by a clear margin.

Company-issued is competitive or better for demanding and support-intensive roles.

Choose-your-own costs slightly more than standard-issue and buys most of BYOD's satisfaction.

Your figures may differ, which is the point of doing it rather than accepting that summary.

Presenting it

One page, four columns, the categories down the side, and a line at the bottom stating which assumptions are soft.

Decision-makers respond to a comparison they can check. They do not respond to an assertion that one arrangement is cheaper, which is what the conversation has usually been until somebody does this.

The soft assumptions

Several inputs are estimates: the incident provision, the onboarding time, the proportion of roles that will need equipping anyway. Stating which figures are soft, and showing how the comparison changes if they are wrong, is what makes the analysis survive scrutiny. A confident-looking page with no stated uncertainty invites an argument about method rather than about the decision.

Revisiting it

The comparison shifts as software moves to the browser, as device prices change and as the workforce composition alters. An analysis three years old is describing different conditions. Rerunning it is quick once the structure exists, which is an argument for building the page properly the first time rather than producing a one-off slide.

Who should see it

Whoever approves the spend, and whoever owns the policy. The comparison settles arguments between functions that have each been reasoning from their own column, which is the actual cause of most disagreement about these arrangements.

Doing it before the argument, not during

A comparison produced in response to a disagreement is read as advocacy. The same analysis prepared in advance, as a routine piece of work, is read as information. The difference is entirely in the timing and it determines whether the exercise settles anything.

Four columns on one page

Company standard, company choice, BYOD with allowance, access only. The same cost categories down the side for each, with the soft figures marked. It takes a day to produce and it ends an argument that has usually been running for years on incompatible assumptions.