Leone saw first-hand how a voluntary BYOD smartphone policy quickly became a mandate when an AT&T corporate contract came up for renewal. Today, he's bracing for BYOD smartphone adoption to spike in Asia. "It literally goes from one day to the next, and you have a massive uptake," he says. "That's what we're preparing for there."

Without having done the BYOD groundwork, CIOs can find themselves playing catch up. It'll take time, for instance, to craft a comprehensive BYOD policy signed off by legal, finance, HR and IT. Simply put, BYOD isn't one of those tech trends where you can take a wait-and-see approach.

"We had to deal with this because, like it or not, it was a tidal wave coming at us," Leone says.

covers Apple and Consumerization of IT for CIO.com. Follow Tom on Twitter @kaneshige. Follow everything from CIO.com on Twitter @CIOonline and on . Email Tom at tkaneshige@cio.com