Global retailer Walmart has selected Good Technology's Good for Enterprise solution and AirWatch's enterprise mobile device management (MDM) solution to manage 10,000 employee devices.
Speaking exclusively to Computing at ISACA's World Congress Insights 2013 in Berlin, Juan Luis Carselle, assistant director of IT strategic planning and information security at Walmart Mexico and Central America, said that implementing a BYOD policy was one of his biggest challenges.
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"BYOD impacts my work every day as we now have 10,000 devices with company email enabled on them at least. It is totally different to managing company-owned devices as the level of control is different. We do make a cost saving as we don't pay for the contract or the device but it brings new challenges," said Carselle.
The company uses Good for Enterprise to enable access to email, and AirWatch for the delivery of a company app store.
Carselle said that when the company went to tender it had two requirements, one was for email and calendar and the other was the option for a virtualised desktop environment on personal laptops, as well as a company app store.
"It was a single project with different requirements. We didn't realise that it required several stages, and Good was selected for email but it could not provide us with a company app store," Carselle stated.
This is the reason that Walmart selected AirWatch, although Walmart is still in the process of developing apps for its associates to use in-house.
Carselle said that Walmart Mexico and Central America is in frequent contact with its global counterparts, including Asda in the UK. He said that as each project is time consuming, it is more efficient for each Walmart subsidiary to share best practices and put proven solutions onto a list.
"There is a process to go through security, risk and compliance review and every time you implement a solution it has to go through that process. It is always better to go through an amendment of something that has already been implemented rather than being the first to implement something as it can be more efficient," he explained.
"It also means you can have a global agreement with the supplier with more room for negotiations, and that you can make use of talent in-house who can support or maintain a solution [that they have already worked on]," he added.
