Symantec Survey Reveals Significant Adoption of Enterprise MobileApps, IT Focuses on Balancing Benefits and Risks
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA, Feb 22, 2012 (Menafn - MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) --Symantec Corp. SYMC today announced the results of its2012 State of Mobility Survey, which revealed a global tipping pointin mobility adoption. The survey highlighted an uptake in mobileapplications across organizations with 71 percent of enterprises atleast discussing deploying custom mobile applications and one-thirdcurrently implementing or have already implemented custom mobileapplications.
Despite this adoption, almost half (48 percent) of survey respondentsmentioned that mobility is somewhat to extremely challenging and afurther 41 percent of survey respondents identified mobile devices asone of their top three IT risks. Yet in the face of these challenges,IT is striking a balance between mobile benefits and risks bytransforming its approach to mobility to deliver improved businessagility, increased productivity and workforce effectiveness.
Click to Tweet: 71% of organizations are already using or planning touse custom mobile applications: http://bit.ly/xUEG5F
"We are impressed by the pace of mobile application adoption withinorganizations," said CJ Desai, senior vice president, Endpoint andMobility Group, Symantec. "This cultural change from refusing mobiledevices not long ago, to actively distributing and developing mobileapplications, has introduced a new set of challenges and complexitiesfor IT staff. Encouragingly, from a security perspective, a majorityof organizations are thinking beyond the simple case of lost orstolen mobile phones."
Read more detailed blog posts:
--Mobility: Rising to the Challenge Blog
--Mobility in Business Today Blog
The State of Mobility Survey reveals the challenges organizations aregrappling with in accommodating the mobility tipping point and alsoidentifies and quantifies mobility-associated risks as perceived byIT decision makers. In this survey, more than 6,000 organizationsfrom 43 countries bring to light the change in the usage of mobiledevices and mobile applications.
Mobile Devices Now Critical Business Tools The significant adoptionof mobile applications demonstrates remarkable confidence, byorganizations, in the ability for mobility to deliver value. Thisconfidence is further supported by a rare alignment betweenexpectations and reality. Generally, the gains expected from newtechnologies far exceed the reality upon implementation. However, forthe smartphones and tablets currently in use, 70 percent of thosesurveyed expected to see increased employee productivity, yet 77percent actually saw productivity gains after implementing.Furthermore, 59 percent of respondents are now relying on mobiledevices for line-of-business applications, another sign that mobilityhas graduated to mainstream status.
Mobile Initiatives Significantly Impacting IT Resources As with theadoption of any new technology, mobility is challenging ITorganizations. Almost half (48 percent) of respondents mentioned thatmobility is somewhat to extremely challenging, while two thirds notedthat reducing the cost and complexity is one of their top businessobjectives. In Symantec's view, this increased pain level indicatesthe transition from small pilots and tactical implementations --where policies are often bypassed and exceptions are made -- toenterprise-wide deployments where policy standards across a largerscale introduce greater complexity. This also suggests that manyimplementations are not yet taking sufficient advantage of theirexisting enterprise systems and processes, which would alleviate muchof the pain and cost that comes with larger scale and resourceduplication.
Mobility Risks Impacting Organizations Mobile adoption is notwithout risks, and IT organizations recognize this challenge.Approximately three out of four organizations indicate maintaining ahigh level of security is a top business objective for mobility and41 percent identified mobile devices as one of the top three ITrisks, making it the leading risk cited by IT. Concerns arewide-ranging, from lost and stolen devices, data leakage,unauthorized access to corporate resources and the spread of malwareinfections from mobile devices to the company network. With mobiledevices now delivering critical business processes and data, the costof security incidents can be significant. The average annual cost ofmobile incidents for enterprises, including data loss, damage to thebrand, productivity loss, and loss of customer trust was USD429,000for enterprise. The average annual cost of mobile incidents for smallbusinesses was USD126,000.
Recommendations Organizations thatchoose to embrace mobility, without compromising on security, aremost likely to improve business processes and achieve productivitygains. To this end, organizations should consider developing a mobilestrategy that defines the organization's mobile culture and alignswith their security risk tolerance.
Some key recommendations include:
--Enable broadly: Mobility offers tremendous opportunities for
organizations of all sizes. Explore how you can take advantage of
mobility and develop a phased approach to build an ecosystem that
supports your plan. To get the most from mobile advances, plan for
line-of-business mobile applications that have mainstream use.
Employees will use mobile devices for business one way or another --
make it on your terms.
--Think strategically: Build a realistic assessment of the ultimate
scale of your mobile business plan and its impact on your
infrastructure. Think beyond email. Explore all of the mobile
opportunities that can be introduced and understand the risks and
threats that need to be mitigated. As you plan, take a
cross-functional approach to securing sensitive data no matter where
it might end up.
--Manage efficiently: Mobile devices are legitimate endpoints that
require the same attention given to traditional PCs. Many of the
processes, policies, education and technologies that are leveraged for
desktops and laptops are also applicable to mobile platforms. So the
management of mobile devices should be integrated into the overall IT
management framework and administered in the same way -- ideally using
compatible solutions and unified policies. This creates operational
efficiencies and lowers the total cost of ownership.
--Enforce Appropriately: As more employees connect their personal
devices to the corporate network, organizations need to modify their
acceptable usage policies to accommodate both corporate-owned and
personally-owned devices. Management and security levers will need to
differ based on ownership of the device and the associated controls
that the organization requires. Employees will continue to add devices
to the corporate network to make their jobs more efficient and
enjoyable so organizations must plan for this legally, operationally
and culturally.
--Secure comprehensively: Look beyond basic password, wipe and
application blocking policies. Focus on the information and where it
is viewed, transmitted and stored. Integrating with existing data loss
prevention, encryption and authentication policies will ensure
consistent corporate and regulatory compliance.
Symantec's 2012 State of Mobility Survey Symantec's 2012 State ofMobility Survey was conducted by Applied Research fromAugust-November 2011. The results are based on 6,275 organizations in43 countries in North America, EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa),Asia Pacific, Japan and Latin America. Among small businesses, wespoke with the person in charge of IT. Among enterprises, wecontacted senior IT and C-level professionals. For the purposes ofthis survey, mobile devices refer to handheld devices such as theBlackBerry Smartphone, iPhone, Android, iTouch and other similardevices. Laptops are not included in the definition of mobiledevices.
Resources
--State of Mobility Survey Report
--Infographic: Enterprises At The Tipping Point In Mobile Adoption
--SlideShare Presentation: State of Mobility Global Results
--Mobility: Rising to the Challenge Blog
--Mobility in Business Today Blog
--State of Mobility Survey Press Kit
Connect with Symantec
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--View Symantec's SlideShare Channel
--Visit Symantec Connect Business Community
About Symantec Symantec is a global leader in providing security,storage and systems management solutions to help consumers andorganizations secure and manage their information-driven world. Oursoftware and services protect against more risks at more points, morecompletely and efficiently, enabling confidence wherever informationis used or stored. More information is available at www.symantec.com.
NOTE TO EDITORS: If you would like additional information on SymantecCorporation and its products, please visit the Symantec News Room athttp://www.symantec.com/news. All prices noted are in U.S. dollarsand are valid only in the United States.
Symantec and the Symantec Logo are trademarks or registeredtrademarks of Symantec Corporation or its affiliates in the U.S. andother countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respectiveowners.
FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS: Any forward-looking indication of plansfor products is preliminary and all future release dates aretentative and are subject to change. Any future release of theproduct or planned modifications to product capability,functionality, or feature are subject to ongoing evaluation bySymantec, and may or may not be implemented and should not beconsidered firm commitments by Symantec and should not be relied uponin making purchasing decisions.
Technorati Tags Symantec, survey, mobile, mobility, security, mobileapps, mobile applications, mobile management, custom mobileapplications
CONTACT:
Spencer Parkinson
Symantec Corp.
1 (801) 358-8207
spencer_parkinson@symantec.com
Sherri Walkenhorst
Connect Public Relations
1 (801) 373-7888
sherriw@connectpr.com
SOURCE: Symantec Corporation
mailto:spencer_parkinson@symantec.com
mailto:sherriw@connectpr.com
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