Topic: Consumerization

Bring-your-own-device becoming accepted business practice (survey)

Summary: Citrix released its global survey on the challenges of IT consumerization, and what companies are doing to manage the increasing role of personal devices in the workplace.

By Rachel King for Between the Lines | November 21, 2011 -- 05:00 GMT (21:00 PST)

Follow @rachelking

Bringing your own device to work is actually becoming an accepted business practice for both small businesses and enterprises alike, based on new research from Citrix.

The global IT consumerization survey found that 25 percent of enterprises and small to medium-sized businesses worldwide support the use of personal devices for business purposes. Sure, that's only a referring to a quarter of the global workforce.

Nonetheless, it does speak to a very big trend as well as a pressing problem for IT departments -- whether they're in favor of personal devices being used on work networks or not.

For example, more than half (62 percent) of businesses surveyed have no controls in place to manage these devices, while 45 percent of IT managers are unaware about all the devices being used.

While the survey covers several major markets worldwide, here are the highlights for the U.S.:

More than 67 percent of survey participants reported that they don't have any policies, procedures or IT systems in place to manage the use of personal devices for business purposes.
Less than half of U.S. firms (46 percent) are aware of all the devices their staff are using for business purposes.
53 percent of businesses have seen productivity improvements of more than 10 percent thanks to the use of personal devices at work, with 16 percent reporting increases of more than 30 percent.
32 percent of firms are most concerned over the security implications of allowing application and document downloads on personal devices
23 percent are concerned over personal devices trying to get remote access to the corporate network.

So what are IT departments struggling with these issues to do about it? Essentially, they have to come to terms with the reality that employees aren't going to stop using their personal devices for business and figure out how to make it work.

"Providing assistance for remote and mobile workers is now a critical requirement to ensure highly productive and efficient businesses," said Elizabeth Cholawsky, vice president and general manager of IT Services for Citrix, in the report.

For reference, this survey is based on the responses of more than 1100 senior executives and IT managers across Australia, France, Germany, United Kingdom, and the United States. The research was conducted in partnership by by YouGov and Research Now between May and August 2011.

Topics: Consumerization, Cisco, VMware, IT Employment

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14 comments

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RE: Bring-your-own-device becoming accepted business practice (survey)

In other news, companies save a fortune buying smartphones and paying for data plans for "on demand" employees by "allowing" them to use their own smartphones for work purposes. Can't wait for my company to figure that one out so I can pay for my own data plan and phone!

Ididar
21 November, 2011 06:19

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- RE: Bring-your-own-device becoming accepted business practice (survey)
  
  @Ididar
  
  Yawn. When can I bring my abacus?
  
  tonymcs@...
  21 November, 2011 15:30
  
  Reply Vote
RE: Bring-your-own-device becoming accepted business practice (survey)

''So what are IT departments struggling with these issues to do about it? Essentially, they have to come to terms with the reality that employees aren???t going to stop using their personal devices for business and figure out how to make it work.''

Or we can just suspend said users credentials... Connecting to the network with an unauthorized device should mean termination IMO.

DickCheney777
21 November, 2011 06:22

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- RE: Bring-your-own-device becoming accepted business practice (survey)
  
  @DickCheney777 I'm in agreement. If someone wants to use their personal phone to get their company email ... so be it. But, the company shouldn't be forced to open up their internal networks to what ever personal device the employees want to bring in. They'll always have to deal with the executives with enough power to make those kinds of demands, but for the general employee base they absolutely should put the security of the company ahead of the whims of an employee base.
  
  Frankly, you simply can't trust people and their personal devices. You have no control over the device or what happens to it once it leaves the office.
  
  Ididar
  21 November, 2011 08:59
  
  Reply Vote
RE: Bring-your-own-device becoming accepted business practice (survey)

Any statistics on the sizes of the companies that follow BYOD policies? In my experience, and unsurprisingly, larger companies seem to be more paranoid about security implications from personal devices.

s1m55r
21 November, 2011 07:11

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- RE: Bring-your-own-device becoming accepted business practice (survey)
  
  @s1m55r - it's easy to label a (larger) company's IT department as being "paranoid" when you (as an end user) haven't seen the scary reality of being subject to a malware attack originating from a user-owned device. "Due diligence" is a more appropriate term... and it costs a lot of money and resources, which some organizations choose to direct at business priorities other than the whims of end users.
  
  d.gruntled
  21 November, 2011 07:18
  
  Reply Vote
  - RE: Bring-your-own-device becoming accepted business practice (survey)
    
    @d.gruntled the only problem with your scenario is: the majority of security nightmares are from Windows based devices. Reduce the number of Windows devices, and the security threat decreases. The worst thing a company can do, is have a homogenious setup.
    
    Rick_Kl
    21 November, 2011 10:50
    
    Reply Vote
- RE: Bring-your-own-device becoming accepted business practice (survey)
  
  @s1m55r Ever heard of SOx my dear LUser?
  
  DickCheney777
  21 November, 2011 07:37
  
  Reply Vote
  - RE: Bring-your-own-device becoming accepted business practice (survey)
    
    @DickCheney777 ---SOx, yes mate I have one on each foot!!!
    
    redlandscv
    21 November, 2011 09:37
    
    Reply Vote
RE: Bring-your-own-device becoming accepted business practice (survey)

To paraphrase the now known Steve Jobs comment about sales people leading companies, I submit that making decisions on the basis of convenience, as opposed to security, can also be "the beginning of the end" for a company. In fact, I submit it may even take less time to demise than when a sales person tries to lead a company.

Willnott
21 November, 2011 10:44

Reply Vote
RE: Bring-your-own-device becoming accepted business practice (survey)

If this includes people using their phones to make business calls or reading email it makes sense. It should only include those allowing access to company data.

radleym
21 November, 2011 11:37

Reply Vote
Data theft, business spying, and more, being invited into the enterprise.

I used to work for a telemarketing company, which also has a huge presence as a TV shopping network. As a project manager, I was responsible to assembling telemarketing lists and making them available to the telemarketers as printed lists. The company paid for each source which came in as a set of leads which we would then call to attempt to make sales to. The printed lists went to each telemarketer on the sales floor. However, I witnessed how some of the telemarketers were taking some of those lists with them. I wondered why and I soon found out when I discovered that, they were also working for the competition in the evening hours, and using my company's list as leads. Needless to say, those employees were getting paid for those leads by the competition and were also reaping further rewards when they made sales to the customers on the list. That was semi-technical data theft, and business spying at the same time, where the competition was using my company's lists to keep abreast of what we were doing while stealing our customers. When I mentioned the matter to the floor managers, they didn't seem concerned at all, and I later figured out, shortly before I left the company, that those managers were also doing the same kind of theft, and were also working for the competition as managers there too. Needless to say, with personal smartphones and tablets and other computing gadgets being allowed into the enterprise, data theft and business spying is being made infinitely simpler and a lot more fruitful. BYOD is an easy tool for data theft and easy for the competition to keep up with you company or to help destroy it.

adornoe
21 November, 2011 11:45

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RE: Bring-your-own-device becoming accepted business practice (survey)

Another great post, Rachel. Thanks for the info. Doc always brings his own toys to work, so I'm very pleased to see that productivity tends to pick up when employees bring technology from home. But Doc is also a little scared to find out that less than half of employers know exactly what technology their employees are using. That seems like a problem.

DocuMentor (Doc)
29 November, 2011 13:10

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RE: Bring-your-own-device becoming accepted business practice (survey)

A lot of CIO's are mandated to use technology to drive revenue. If end-users are bringing their own devices into the workplace with plans to use them for productivity, IT should figure out how to get those devices onto the network safely. This Salesteam vs. IT mentality is counter-productive and archaic.

Rory_works
29 November, 2011 19:57

Reply Vote