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Choose Your Own Devices (CYOD)

A real-world walkthrough of one IT director's transition from company-assigned equipment to a choose-your-own-device model at a fully remote SaaS company, covering the business logic, logistics, and trade-offs behind both approaches.

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About this video

Managing end-user hardware looks very different depending on whether a workforce is centralized or distributed, and this case study draws on direct experience as an IT director at a SaaS company to illustrate exactly how that difference plays out. When the company was primarily office-based, assigning standardized equipment made sense — devices were pooled, checked out to employees on arrival, returned when they left, and easy to support because every user had the same hardware. That consistency kept costs down and reduced the complexity of troubleshooting and provisioning. As the company transitioned to a fully remote model, that approach broke down. Shipping equipment to distributed employees, tracking returns, and managing inventory across locations became logistically burdensome and expensive. The company responded by moving to a choose-your-own-device program for peripherals — screens, headsets, keyboards, and mice — while continuing to assign laptops centrally. Employees received a roughly $400 stipend to purchase their own peripherals directly, with a recommended equipment list as guidance and the flexibility to upgrade at their own expense. The shift reduced the company's inventory footprint significantly and eliminated the overhead of packaging, shipping, and retrieving low-cost hardware. Equipment was ordered directly to employees through Amazon, and if something broke it was simply replaced without the friction of a return process. Only higher-value items like laptops and monitors were expected back. The net result was a leaner, more scalable hardware program that traded a modest increase in upfront spending for a substantial reduction in ongoing management burden — a trade-off that made clear business sense once the workforce became fully remote.

What you'll learn

What's covered

Choose Your Own Device Transition

Key terms

Assigned Device
A device procurement model in which the organization selects, purchases, and issues specific equipment to employees, reclaiming it when they leave or change roles.
Choose Your Own Device
CYOD
Choose Your Own Device is a mobile device policy that allows employees to select from a pre-approved list of devices, each enrolled under organizational security management policies.
Endpoint
Any device that connects to a network, including computers, smartphones, tablets, and IoT devices.
Asset
Any resource of value to an organization, including hardware, software, data, and personnel.
Configuration Management
The process of tracking and controlling changes to hardware, software, and documentation throughout a system's lifecycle.

Topics

Cyod Endpoint Management Device Provisioning It Policy Remote Work Infrastructure Asset Management

Transcript

One of the companies that I worked for, I started transitioning from us controlling the different devices that the users would use to having more of a choose your own device. So I'm going to talk about that journey, and the pros and cons, and how we went through that choose your own device transition.

Assigned Equipment

I used to work for a SaaS company as an IT director. When I first joined, we didn't allow our users to choose their own equipment. We just assigned them specific equipment based off of their jobs and the needs of that job. This was the right call at the time because of all the advantages of that. But at some point in time something changed and we transitioned them to choose your own device, and this was the right call because of the advantages of choose your own device. It's a perfect way to illustrate the advantages and disadvantages of these two systems.

Initially when I joined, about two-thirds of the company were at the headquarters office and about a third of the company was remote. This is about an 80 to 100 employee company. The advantages of this are that we already had the equipment on hand. What we'd do is, when somebody would join the company, we would then just take what we already had on hand, we would check it out to them, and so they were essentially assigned this equipment. When they left we would check it back in so it could be checked out to the next person. It was very easy to support, and we could check this in and out and we didn't have to buy a lot of extra equipment. It was easy to support because everybody had the same equipment.

Moving to Choose Your Own Device

But at some point in time that model didn't make sense. We transitioned to a fully remote company, and during that transition we would have to mail out all of this equipment to the different people. Often we were also struggling to get some of that equipment back when they changed positions or they left the company.

So instead we went to this choose your own device, where they could choose their own devices, their own screens. We still assign specific laptops to them, but they got to choose their own screens, their own speakers, their own headsets, keyboards, mouse — all of these peripherals they could choose.

When we moved to choose your own device, when somebody would join the company, we would give them an allowance. I think at the time it was about $400, and it would cover the recommended set of equipment. So we would have to recommend a set of equipment for them to go out and purchase, and one of those items could be a little bit nicer. It was enough money for them to buy the basic set of equipment plus choose one of them a little bit nicer, like a nicer headset. And then they were happy, because they get to choose what they had. If they wanted to buy more expensive stuff, then they'd just use their personal money to maybe upgrade. So this was a great way to really not put a lot of boundaries on it, but just give them some guidance, and allow them to buy this stuff.

Why It Was Less to Manage

We never expected it back. So all we would do is we would get onto Amazon and we'd ship it directly to them. That way we didn't have to sit there and manage packaging. We didn't have any inventory. So in the long run, even though we paid a little bit more upfront, there was a lot less to manage. We were not having inventory of stuff and having to send things back and forth and paying for all that shipping and handling.

The only thing we really expected back was the laptop itself, and maybe the monitor, because that's a little more expensive of a purchase. And then if something broke, we wouldn't worry about replacing it, or what we choose, we'd just send them another one. So it ended up being a lot less management to go to this choose your own device. The reason for the change was we went remote, and so it just made a lot more sense that we didn't have to manually manage all of this equipment that really didn't amount to much money.

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