90% of employees use personal devices for work

IT managers feel they lack the necessary tools to properly manage personal devices.

A new survey by DELL Kace revealed 87 percent of companies have employees that use some kind of personal device for work including laptops, smartphones and tablet computers. However, they are unable to effectively protect corporate data and intellectual property as well as ensure compliance.

Personal devices continue to proliferate across businesses as users see the value in being more mobile, efficient and connected. The primary goal of the study was to gather data about the use of employee personal devices for business and corporate policy for their adoption in the workplace.

According to the research, security needs top the list for IT managers when it comes to managing external mobile devices with 82 percent citing their concerns about the use of personal devices for business use, and another 62 percent specifically concerned about network security breaches.

Key survey findings include:

• 87 percent of respondents reported employees use personal devices for work purposes
• 59 percent reported their personal devices have created the need for organizations to support multiple operating systems (OS’s). Further, 60 percent reported a greater demand for support of Mac OS X since the introduction of the Apple iPad and iPhone
• 82 percent of survey respondents cited they have concerns about the use of personal devices for work purposes
• 64 percent revealed they are not confident that they know of all personal devices being used for business purposes
• 32 percent revealed employees use unauthorized personal devices and applications to connect to their network
• 88 percent said they believe it is important to have a policy in place to support personal devices, and another 62 percent revealed their organization lacks the necessary tools to manage personal devices.

“The results of our latest survey represent a significant shift in how systems administrators manage their organisation’s networks with today’s disparate and potentially global workforce. It’s absolutely essential that IT teams deploy a strategy that provides end-to-end management capabilities on a variety of operating systems to effectively protect networks and address the consumerization and personalization of IT,” said Rob Meinhardt, general manager and co-founder for Dell KACE.