IT Can’t Handle Mobility, Says Report

Twenty nine percent of workplaces across Europe have no policies in place around the use of mobile devices, despite the growing trend of Bring Your Own Devices (BYOD), research has revealed.

According to automated IT systems management software provider, Kaseya, which conducted a survey of 546 IT professionals across Europe, this figure reflects the disconnect between the perceived risks and the value that businesses place on having mobile access to information.

Mobility critical

The survey found that two thirds of respondents across Europe (67 percent) reported mobile access as either ‘Critical’ or ‘Fairly important’ to their business. With some disparity between regions, 81 percent of UK and 75 percent of German respondents reported mobile access as ‘Critical’ or ‘Fairly important’, while figures for BeNeLux and France hit 55 percent and 51 percent respectively.

Today, the majority of staff use mobile devices for work across Europe, according to research results, particularly in Germany, where 80 percent of workers use mobile devices in 57 percent of companies.

The top four concerns among users of BYOD data loss, data leaks, theft of contacts, and availability. Despite awareness, and the growing number of high-profile security breach cases, world-wide, data loss continues plague companies,with 23 percent of European firms estimating their annual cost of data loss at over €1,000 (£858) on average, with one in ten UK and French companies rating their losses at more than €5,000 (£5228).

Koby Amedume, Marketing Director at Kaseya, commented, “Addressing the challenges of mobile devices on the corporate network has become a mission critical operation for IT staff.  This research highlights the need for IT departments across Europe to ensure they are able to securely and easily allow access to their network from mobile devices – whether these are from laptop computers, smartphone devices or the increasing number of tables on the market. The challenge for IT departments is to allow full device management across the plethora of products now available and being introduced to the company by employees.”