Today, in partnership with telecoms and technology analyst Ovum, we have announced the results of a global enterprise mobility survey. The survey threw up some surprises and confirmed a few things we might have guessed to be true.
The benefits of BYOD for employers and employees are well-documented, as are a good number of the barriers to adoption. When it comes to enterprise mobility employers have an understandable insistence on water-tight security. While employee concerns tend to centre on privacy and cost.
Irrespective of age, job function, geographic location or preferred mobile device technology, maintaining privacy is the single most important concern for employees when it comes to enterprise mobility with 84.4% of respondents rating it a top three concern. The challenge of ensuring security while maintaining privacy must, at times, seem insurmountable to enterprise IT managers. In the words of enterprise mobility pragmatists everywhere ‘you can’t have your cake and eat it’.
Although, one survey finding in particular suggests perhaps there is a solution that can keep everyone happy. When Ovum asked those who BYOD whether they would prefer to have a service that allowed them to use their own devices at work provided by their mobile operator, rather than their employer, 42% said “yes” compared with just 30.1% who said “no”.
Put simply, employees trust their mobile service providers more than the organizations that pay their wages and, in a lot of BYOD cases, the organizations who pick up the tab for the mobile services they use. Mobile service providers are more of a constant in the lives of employees, particularly in high growth markets where BYOD is more common. Think about your own life experiences, there are a small and finite number of MNOs to choose from, while (for most people) career paths are more varied.
The unresolved tension between privacy and security is clear. The requirements for security and privacy are colliding – for both the enterprise and employee. Mobile operators are uniquely positioned to deliver the balancing act between user impact, complexity and cost, and deliver services for the enterprise that achieve:
- Protection without compromising privacy
- Cost control without compromising employee efficiency
The benefits would be the creation of a trusted community outside of the enterprise, without the financial burden of the cost being met by the internal IT/security budget. By including security features in all devices, even at a basic level, the awareness of the risks mobile devices are exposed to on a daily basis is raised. At AdaptiveMobile we believe that doing this well and providing enough security to baseline your ecosystem will ultimately have a positive impact in terms of raising the security level and expectation for all.
One of the surprises that came out of the survey was the level of importance that employees place on security as part of a corporate mobility service relative to the importance of avoiding ‘bill shock’. A massive 67.2% of respondents who BYOD said avoiding access to malicious websites was a top three consideration, while 57.7% believe avoiding malicious apps is a top three concern. Avoiding bill shock garnered just 19.7% rating it as another top issue.
These figures make sense when you consider the rising penetration of smartphone ownership (and BYOD) comes hand in hand with a rising incidence of security breaches. Employees are much more aware today of the threats posed by breaches to security. While the cost of enterprise mobility is decreasing everywhere, so avoiding bill shock is becoming less of an issue relatively.
Reflecting on these concerns there is an obvious opportunity for national trusted mobile operators and carriers to bridge the trust divide. The survey shows MNOs are uniquely positioned to allay employee concerns about privacy whilst delivering effective mobile security services. It doesn’t need a revolution – but fresh thinking from the mobile security experts, in order that today’s technologies are evolved to meet the security demands of our hyper-connected society.