Which employees should get a business laptop computer?

Richard makes a lot of great points.

What are the job responsibilities and what are the tools needed to get them done?

Also, when looking at two employees who both may have need - which one will use it more while out of the office - both from the standpoint of their work ethic but also in regards to what the job requires... As Richard says, both may need email access, but one may also need the company's pricing configurator or CAD software, etc.

Which job(s)/user(s) have the biggest impact on the business' top/bottom line?

What does a laptop give you?

Flexibility? You're no longer reliant on a fixed device in an office, with a keyboard, a mouse, a monitor and a base unit. Most laptops support wireless connection now - so less need for physical cabling. Your office space can be more dynamic, hot desking/hoteling is easier to enable - more so if you consider 1 device per user.

Mobility? With the right security measures (AV, VPN, disk encryption, 2 factor authentication) your users are able to extend those advantages for 'flexibility' to work out of the office - be that at home, at customer sites, while on the road, off-line or on-line.

But both of these come at a price. Laptops are more expensive to buy than a desktop. Laptops are more prone to loss and damage - which leads to more support queries and more user downtime. You also need to be more concerned about loss of data and security with a laptop device than (say) a desktop device kept back at the office. Its also not unusual for users to leave laptops at the office - their 'remote working' use becomes problematic when they've left them locked in a drawer because they chose not to take it home on the train/bus/cycle.

There's a lot of chatter around 'BYOC' - giving employees a wedge of cash to be able to choose their own device. I'm not a great fan to be honest - I don't think it 'increases productivity' and I'm unsure of the cost savings.

That all said - your driver here is "allow people to work from home". If you're going to that with laptops, you're likely to have to introduce security measures that can make sure that the endpoint won't impact your network, that you don't lose data and that you make sure the user connecting is authorised to do so. If you've done that - why supply a device at all? Why not use virtualisation technologies to deliver a remote desktop/applications to that user? I've worked on a number of projects that allow users to make use of their home PC/internet PC/mobile phone/customer device - which (in terms of investment) can be a fraction of the Capex cost of giving each user (for orgs between 500-4000 users) a laptop.

The flip side is, these solutions need on-line access: however, solutions from vendors like MokaFive, VirtualComputer, or VMWare's ACE can deliver remote similar things and, not only manage the data, but the desktop environment as well: and that's important if you want users to be able to work securely and reliably and the data that they work on to be up-to-date, backed-up and secure.

Your question, imo, is more than 'who gets a laptop' its 'how can we save/make money by allowing more users to work from home/remotely'. Giving everyone a laptop is one way of doing this - but there are others. I think 'home PC access' is going to be increasingly used to help with giving greater flexibility to users, to allow home working, and to reduce the reliance on giving out and maintaining devices - and I said so here - http://bit.ly/9U3roS

Others have hit the high points. What does the individual do that requires a laptop? While individuals claim to be working from home, what kind of work are they doing? If they are checking email or creating or editing work related documents, do they really need a laptop? They could use thier own home computer and check email via the browser. Groove could keep documents created at home synchronized with the office far cheaper than a laptop.
Does the user travel and have to work on documents at teh airport or in a hotel? Does the individual have to demonstrate or give presentatons at client sites? These individuals might have a justification for a laptop. I do travel a lot. But I have my company laptop hooked to the network at home, connected to an external monitor and keyboard. If I have to travel light, I have a netbook. The netbook and laptop both have groove so I can work on work related documents.

That's a tough question with many political and security ramifications. What you definitely don't want to allow or enable is the ability for corporate data to reside on home or publicly accessible (library, cafe) computers. That's a security nightmare no one wishes to invite. That being said, you still need to operate the business efficiently.

There will be a group of people on your IT staff that should have a laptop and a secure connection into the data center to facilitate their ability to restore failed systems from any place at any time. Other people, like salespeople for instance, that need to be able to present information to customers and run applications from the field will most likely need a laptop or a smart phone application.

Then, for the general group that needs to check email during the evening or on the weekend, they should be able to use their home computer or smart phone.

This decision requires a balance between business enablement and security. The company's security policy should provide guidelines concerning aspects of laptop usage, remote connectivity and data placement/downloading.

There is no right or wrong approach to who gets a laptop. is it depends on your business requirements. So gather your requirements such as:
Do you have all 10 types as Brian mentioned or just a subset? Can you handle the added expense of laptops and the risk of loss (they do get lost and stolen) of the equipment and data, Can you afford the software needed to protect the laptops such as hard drive encryption, 2-factor authenticaton, locks, etc.? Is it business critical that your employees can be mobile or MUST they be mobile (Sales for example) to conduct business? Does your support staff have the skills and tools to deploy, track, maintain and/or repair laptops? If not do we have to incur costs to hire or train? What costs are we lowering or removing with laptops? What costs are we adding? Ask all the questions get the requirements established, then add up the savings and the costs of all the above (not just the equipment), calculate the ROI, add some intangibles to the mix like greater employee satisfaction and better retention, and balance the result against your corporate standards for capital expenditures and risk.
Some other things to consider are:
You shoudn't hold onto laptops longer than 3 years so expect to incur costs on
a 3 yr cycle.
Examine leasing laptops with a maintenance and support clause to remove
the need for having the people who do that in your firm.
Negotiate with several different laptop vendors.
Consider different levels of technology in the laptops, not everyone gets the
super-duper version, not even the CEO.
If you are a small firm and want to buy look at refurbs with warranties.
This is by no means ALL the considerations but I would say they are most of the ones that will drive your decision to equip/ not equip your staff with laptops.

Here is my list by priority:

1) Exec staff - Unless you want exec pressure whining about "Johnny got one."

2) Those who are required to keep the business running after hours - Don't limit an engineer who is on-call by not providing a notebook option. The downtime alone for that drive back to work is expensive to the company. We even reimburse for Internet fees for these people. Why? Because we expect them to be productive *all* the time. Imagine how disgruntled you'd become if you had to drive to work every time a server/process stopped? You'd be job hunting real quick.

3) Those who are part of the production "supply chain." These are the people who make sure your business has what it needs to deliver product to your customers.

4) Marketing people who do "in-person" visits.

5) IT staff - Yes, you don't belong at the bottom of the list, although you may feel a bit entitled, you have far too many tasks which need mobility to accomplish. Wearing a pager qualifies, even if it gets turned off at night.

6) The people who are "relied upon" to get the work done. That poor admin who constantly supports the exec (in my book) deserves executive status. They are the golden gears in the machine. The "go to" engineer who is regularly pestered to fix things, when he/she is not even part of that task group. Think about *who* would be a major impact if they left the company.

7) Anyone else who is expected to perform "after hours" work.

8) HOT SPARES - Never give away your last laptop. I have had some "lively discussions" about this one. "No, you can't have my spare MacBook. Go get approval to have one purchased. It's a hot spare that *I* got approval to purchase." The day you have that VP crack his LCD, and you're able to pop/swap the hard drive and go, you'll be happier on so many levels, that the quibbling will be worth it.

9) Managers. (The list got mundane really fast, didn't it?)

10) The rest who can prove they "need" a laptop and you still have available units.

I realize that there are several roles which can be handled without a laptop, which land in the 8 to 5 folk who don't/can't bring work home. However, it's been a true overall performance advantage for our company to have 90% laptops in the building.

At a minimum, make a plan to only purchase laptops when new hardware is needed. You can "trickle down" equipment to the new person in most cases. Keep a list of who actually does "ask" for a notebook, as it will come in handy later.

If you're ambitious, take action! Calculate what it would cost to move people onto new laptops, and work it out as a 3 year plan, by quarterly purchases. The desktops are going to be considered old in just a few years, and needing replacement at some point. (And please, don't forget to include spares in your purchase plan!)

Everyone must get a laptop. These days there is no job that can't benefit from being untethered to the desk, even phone centers or helpdesks. If for no other reason, high-availability and DR requirements always call for a mobile solution that can be moved to another location. That allows people to work around small interruptions like WAN outages or downed servers, or large ones like power outages or disasters. Full mobility also lets people collaborate flexibly by carrying their work into meetings or planning sessions.

There's no downside to going 100% mobile, even the ROI works when you factor in the lower cost of desks and office space (less free coffee to supply), more open flex time for empoyees, and smaller footprint that telecommuting offers a company. Most progressive companies that recognize how essential anytime anywhere computing is, are going fully mobile, and fully wireless, even at the workplace. I'd suggest that is the strategy behind the decision.