News Release
Symantec Survey Reveals Significant Adoption of Enterprise Mobile Apps,
IT Focuses on Balancing Benefits and Risks
Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) today announced the results of its 2012 State of Mobility Survey 2012 State of Mobility Survey, which revealed a global tipping point in mobility adoption. The survey highlighted an uptake in mobile applications
across organisations with
75 percent of New Zealand enterprises at least discussing deploying custom mobile applications (compared with 71 percent
globally) and 35 percent of New Zealand organisations (compared with one-third globally) currently implementing or have
already implemented custom mobile applications.
Despite this adoption, 50 percent of survey respondents (48 percent globally) mentioned that mobility is somewhat to
extremely challenging and a further 38 percent (41 percent globally) of survey respondents identified mobile devices as
one of their top three IT risks. Yet in the face of these challenges, IT is striking a balance between mobile benefits
and risks by transforming its approach to mobility to deliver improved business agility, increased productivity and
workforce effectiveness.
Click to Tweet: 71 percent of organisations globally are already using or planning to use custom mobile applications: http://bit.ly/xUEG5F
“We are impressed by the pace of mobile application adoption within organisations,” said CJ Desai, senior vice
president, Endpoint and Mobility Group, Symantec. “This cultural change from refusing mobile devices not long ago, to
actively distributing and developing mobile applications, has introduced a new set of challenges and complexities for IT
staff. Encouragingly, from a security perspective, a majority of organisations are thinking beyond the simple case of
lost or stolen mobile phones.”
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The State of Mobility Survey reveals the challenges organisations are grappling with in accommodating the mobility
tipping point and also identifies and quantifies mobility-associated risks as perceived by IT decision makers. In this
survey, more than 6,000 organisations from 43 countries (including 150 New Zealand organisations) bring to light the
change in the usage of mobile devices and mobile applications.
Mobile Devices Now Critical Business Tools
The significant adoption of mobile applications demonstrates remarkable confidence, by organisations, in the ability for
mobility to deliver value. This confidence is further supported by a rare alignment between expectations and reality.
Generally, the gains expected from new technologies far exceed the reality upon implementation. However, for the
smartphones and tablets currently in use, 65 percent (and 70 percent globally) of those surveyed expected to see
increased employee productivity, yet 69 percent (and 77 percent globally) actually saw productivity gains after
implementing. Furthermore, 59 percent of respondents around the world are now relying on mobile devices for
line-of-business applications, another sign that mobility has graduated to mainstream status.
Mobile Initiatives Significantly Impacting IT Resources
As with the adoption of any new technology, mobility is challenging IT organisations. Almost half of respondents (50
percent in New Zealand and 48 percent globally) mentioned that mobility is somewhat to extremely challenging, while
globally two thirds noted that reducing the cost and complexity is one of their top business objectives. In Symantec’s
view, this increased pain level indicates the transition from small pilots and tactical implementations where policies
are often bypassed and exceptions are made to enterprise-wide deployments where policy standards across a larger scale
introduce greater complexity. This also suggests that many implementations are not yet taking sufficient advantage of
their existing enterprise systems and processes, which would alleviate much of the pain and cost that comes with larger
scale and resource duplication.
Mobility Risks Impacting Organisations
Mobile adoption is not without risks, and IT organisations recognise this challenge. Over two thirds (and approximately
three quarters of organisations globally) indicate maintaining a high level of security is a top business objective for
mobility and 38 percent of New Zealand organisations (compared with 41 percent globally) identified mobile devices as
one of the top three IT risks, making it the leading risk cited by IT. Concerns are wide-ranging, from lost and stolen
devices, data leakage, unauthorised access to corporate resources and the spread of malware infections from mobile
devices to the company network. With mobile devices now delivering critical business processes and data, the cost of
security incidents can be significant. The average annual cost of mobile incidents in New Zealand, including data loss,
damage to the brand, productivity loss, and loss of customer trust was USD$223,000. The average annual cost of mobile
incidents globally for enterprise was USD$429,000 and USD$126,000 for small businesses globally.
Recommendations
Organisations that choose to embrace mobility, without compromising on security, are most likely to improve business
processes and achieve productivity gains. To this end, organisations should consider developing a mobile strategy that
defines the organisation’s mobile culture and aligns with their security risk tolerance.
Some key recommendations include:
•Enable broadly: Mobility offers tremendous opportunities for organisations 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, organisations 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 organisation requires. Employees
will continue to add devices to the corporate network to make their jobs more efficient and enjoyable so organisations
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 of Mobility Survey was conducted by Applied Research from August-November 2011. The results are
based on 6,275 organisations in 43 countries in North America, EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), Asia Pacific,
Japan and Latin America. Among small businesses, we spoke with the person in charge of IT. Among enterprises, we
contacted senior IT and C-level professionals. For the purposes of this survey, mobile devices refer to handheld devices
such as the Blackberry Smartphone, iPhone, Android, iTouch and other similar devices. Laptops are not included in the
definition of mobile devices.
Resources
Connect with Symantec
About Symantec
Symantec is a global leader in providing security, storage and systems management solutions to help consumers and
organisations secure and manage their information-driven world. Our software and services protect against more risks at
more points, more completely and efficiently, enabling confidence wherever information is used or stored. More
information is available at www.symantec.com.
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