The Saving, Counted Honestly

BYOD is adopted to save money, and it does reduce the hardware line. Whether it reduces total cost is a different question, and the answer depends on things that are rarely put in the same calculation.

The commercial question in “The Saving, Counted Honestly” needs a record that both sides can read. An organisation considering capital efficiency ratio guide for capital efficiency ratio can connect time and project evidence with the cost model, provided reimbursements, corrections and non-billable work remain visible.

What falls

The obvious one: devices not purchased. For an organisation replacing laptops every three or four years, that is a visible and substantial reduction, and it arrives immediately.

For an independent reference relevant to “The Saving, Counted Honestly”, consult the FTC business guidance; compare its principles with the proposed ownership model, access rules and real support process.

Also: less stock held, less disposal, less of the logistics around issuing and recovering hardware, and a smaller asset register.

These are real and they are why the arrangement is attractive. Nothing below argues that they are not.

What rises

Support cost per incident. A standard fleet means a known configuration and a practised fix. A hundred different devices means every problem is novel. Support time per ticket rises and first-contact resolution falls, and the effect is larger than people expect.

Software and management licensing, which may be per device rather than per person, and where personal devices sometimes need a second instance.

Administration: the agreement, the enrolment, the stipend processing, the exit checks. Small per person, real at scale, and it lands on functions that did not previously carry it.

Incident cost. A lost personal device holding company data is a longer and more uncertain event than a lost company laptop, because the recovery options are fewer and the ownership is contested.

What is harder to count and belongs anyway

The allowance, where one is paid, which the costing note treats properly.

The productivity cost of a device that is too old for the work, which exists in every substantial BYOD population and which the employer cannot simply replace.

And the exit risk, which is the whole final section of this collection and which costs nothing until it costs a great deal.

Doing the arithmetic

Take the hardware saving per person per year. Subtract the allowance. Subtract the additional support hours at a loaded rate — measure them rather than guessing, by comparing ticket times for managed and personal devices, which most service desks can produce.

Then add a provision for incidents, however rough.

Organisations that run this find the net saving is positive but considerably smaller than the hardware line suggested, and in some cases negative for roles that are support-intensive or that need capable hardware.

That does not settle the decision. Flexibility and staff preference are legitimate reasons to continue even where the saving is thin. But a decision made on an overstated saving is a decision made on the wrong basis, and the arithmetic takes a day.

The costs that arrive later

Some of what BYOD costs does not appear in the first year. Support load rises as the device population ages and diversifies. Exit gaps accumulate quietly. The allowance erodes and eventually has to be corrected in one visible step. A first-year costing will therefore look better than the steady state, which is worth saying when the arrangement is being evaluated after twelve months and declared a success.

Measuring the support difference

Most service desks can split tickets by whether the device is managed. Where they cannot, a month of tagging gives the answer. Compare volume per user and average handling time. The difference, multiplied across the population at a loaded rate, is the support cost of the arrangement, and it is the single largest offsetting item in most organisations. It is also the one most often estimated at zero.

The figure to take to a decision

One page: hardware avoided, allowance paid, support difference measured, administration estimated, incident provision stated as a provision. A net figure with the soft items flagged. It will not be precise and it will be defensible, which is more than the gross hardware saving currently in use anywhere.

What a thin saving still buys

Where the net figure is small, the arrangement may still be right for reasons other than money: people prefer it, recruitment is easier, nobody carries two devices. Those are legitimate grounds. What is not legitimate is continuing to describe it as a cost reduction after the arithmetic has shown it is not, which is how the arrangement avoids scrutiny for another five years.