Organisations are falling into two main camps when it comes to mobile technologies, according to a new Symantec survey.
2013 State of Mobility Survey finds mobile ‘innovators’ who readily embrace mobile technologies and who are "experiencing significant benefits," and ‘traditionals’ who are implementing mobility more slowly, largely in response to user demand, and are seeing both fewer costs and benefits.
"Few issues command the attention of IT today like mobility," said Francis deSouza, president, Products and Services, Symantec. "The difference in attitudes and results between the organisations that actively embrace mobility and those that are reluctant is significant. Organisations taking a proactive approach benefit much more than those that put it off until they eventually find themselves trying to catch up to the competition."
The two groups perceive the benefits and risks of mobility differently, according to the Symantec. Among innovators, 66% say the benefits are worth the risks, while 74% of traditional businesses feel the risks are justified. This is reflected in the rate of mobility adoption, with 50% more employees using smartphones for business among innovators than among traditional organisations. More than half of innovators (55%) are also taking control of purchasing phones for employees, compared to 44% of traditionals.
When it comes to the innovators, company involvement does not stop with purchasing the phones. They also more often have mobility policies, and they are twice as likely to use technology to enforce their policies (60% in the innovators as opposed to 33% among traditionals).
With the innovators taking more advantage of mobility, they are also seeing more costs associated with it. In fact, they averaged twice as many mobile incidents during the last year, such as lost devices and data breaches, leading to consequences such as regulatory fines and lost revenue.
The innovators are also experiencing far more benefits, in three key areas, namely increased productivity, speed and agility, improvements in brand value, customer happiness and overall competitiveness and employees who are more content, with improved recruiting and retention rates.
Most importantly, however, the innovators are experiencing nearly 50% higher revenue growth than traditionals (44% vs. 30%). All things considered, says Symantec, businesses perceive net positive results with mobility.
The survey was carried out among more than 3,200 businesses from 29 countries, ranging from smaller businesses to enterprise.
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