July 2012
Forrester Surveys Show Surging Demand For Consumerization And BYOD
CIOs and IT managers worldwide are significantly altering their corporate mobility strategies. Why? Because the prevalence of consumer smartphones and tablets, maturing enterprise-class mobile applications, the upcoming wave of ultrabooks and tablets that will be folded into the mix, and empowered workers who are demanding flexible and mobile work styles are all driving IT to change how they support mobile devices, applications, and people. IT must meet the needs of an increasingly mobile workforce while continuing to ensure that corporate data is properly managed and secured across all devices, regardless of who owns the hardware. By now, most CIOs and IT managers have realized that:
Empowered workers demand the freedom to choose their devices and crave self-service capabilities. Today, more than half of global information workers use their personal devices for work and have taken on the responsibility of paying for their mobile data services or charging some or all of their costs back to their company (see Figure 1). Consumerization means choice for employees, but there is a silver lining for IT managers: They can outsource the cost of devices, monthly services, and even some applications to
employees. This is easy to see in the way employees are willing to share or shoulder the cost of smartphones, tablets, and monthly plans.
IT must embrace multiplatform strategies that empower their workforces with device independence. The proliferation of mobile platforms has driven firms to offer broad support for mobile devices powered by many operating systems.1 And with new and updated smartphone and tablet operating systems just around
the corner, it’s becoming increasingly critical for IT to invest in a platform that provides a single pane of glass across your smartphone and tablet ecosystem, spanning both company-owned and employee-owned devices.
It’s time to build a corporate BYOD strategy without losing control of management, security, or costs. When leveraged correctly, mobile technologies in the form of applications, smartphones, and tablets can give your business a competitive edge over your less-connected peers. IT managers are under enormous pressure to develop a comprehensive approach to mobility that realizes its business, financial, and operational benefits while still protecting the organization from security, legal, and compliance risks. CIOs are tackling this challenge head-on by prioritizing mobile security spending and centralizing the development and execution of their corporate mobile strategy (see Figure 2).
Page 2 Figure 1
Consumerization Necessitates The Shift Toward BYOD
Base: 2,181 employees from enterprises with more than 500 employees in North America, the UK, France, Germany, India, China, and Japan (percentages may not total 100 because of rounding)
Source: Forrsights Workforce Employee Survey, Q4 2011, Forrester Research, Inc. 36% 27% 41% 35% 15% 8% 9% 11% 17% 7% 5% 9% 20% 30% 22% 24% 12% 27% 24% 21%
Asia Pacific (India, China, Japan) Europe (UK, France, Germany) North America Global
I pay for all of it My company and I share the cost (partial reimbursement) My company reimburses me the full amount My company pays all of it directly
Does not apply
Page 3 Figure 2
CIOs Must Develop A Corporate Mobility Strategy And Should Invest Heavily In Management And Security
Base: 767 decision-makers from enterprises with more than 500 employees in North America, the UK, France, and Germany (multiple responses accepted)
Source: Forrsights Networks And Telecommunications Survey, Q1 2012, Forrester Research, Inc. “What are your firm’s top mobile priorities during the next 12 months?”
3% 3% 3% 5% 6% 7% 9% 12% 12% 10% 10% 10% 13% 21% 14% 16% 19% 21% 31% 36% 34% 32% 33% 41% 42% 42% 41% 47%
Implement a corporate mobile app store to distribute mobile apps to employees, partners, suppliers, or customers Hire IT personnel with mobile application development/deployment and support skills Use some/more third-party services for mobility management Provide more mobile support for partners and suppliers (e.g., website, dedicated applications) Provide some/more IT support for employee-owned smartphones and tablets Provide more mobile support for employees in the office Implement/improve mobile telecom expense management Provide more mobile support for customers (e.g., website, dedicated applications) Implement a comprehensive mobile device management solution that includes employee-owned smartphones and tablets Support connected touchscreen tablets or slates (larger devices than a smartphone, e.g., Apple iPad or Microsoft Windows-based touchscreen) Provide more mobile support for out-of-office users Support more Internet-connected smartphones and tablet devices/OSes Implement/improve a comprehensive corporate mobile strategy and associated policies Implement/improve mobile security
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Platform And App Proliferation Compounds Complexity And Threatens Security
It’s quite clear that enterprise mobility comes with a host of opportunities for transformative investments, but it also brings many support and provisioning challenges and a lot of security and cost concerns for IT to overcome. To explore the challenges that are top of mind for CIOs in the coming year, in the study commissioned by Sybase / SAP, Forrester asked how the proliferation of mobile applications and devices within the workplace is affecting their next-generation corporate mobile strategy. A plethora of hardware platforms, operating systems, and applications. Historically, IT has specified which devices it would support, often preferring a single platform to keep costs down and to simplify management and security practices. BYOD has completely changed that (see Figure 3). Today, IT professionals have to contend with different OEMs, form factors, operating systems, and applications, making it difficult to enforce a one-size-fits-all policy. Issues such as inconsistent VPN support, a lack of clean separation between the consumer and corporate workspaces, and users’ ability to overwrite IT
configurations could cause them to drift toward the lowest common denominator of operational and security standards.
A mix of corporate-owned and employee-owned devices. There has been a dramatic rise in employee use of personal devices. In a Forrsights survey, 70% of user respondents chose the smartphone they use for work.2
A mix of corporate and personal devices means that IT will have to revise its single-device mobile policy to account for personally owned assets, which introduce different management and security challenges. It will also introduce thorny legal and privacy issues regarding what security policies you can reasonably enforce on a personal device.
A muddled application development reality. As consumer devices proliferate in the enterprise, the number of organizations developing custom mobile applications is steadily on the rise.3 And although security is a
prime driver of custom development, it’s one of the hardest aspects to get right. For example, decisions about building HTML5 rather than native apps need to take into account security issues arising from the use of HTML5 local storage and the new web socket protocol. There is also a general lack of good standards and library support for security functions such as authentication, single sign-on, and encryption.
An inability to effectively and proactively manage costs. IT leaders often cite cost containment as a major concern when asked to expand the number of approved devices and platforms. In fact, 72% of firms surveyed ranked cost as an extremely important issue when planning their next-generation mobile strategy.4 The
technology, staffing, and skill requirements needed to support this expansion can be significant, and it’s motivating many IT managers to address these needs with a combination of BYOD programs, self-service tools, and on-premises, cloud-hosted, or managed-service mobile management solutions.
Page 5 Figure 3
IT Is Struggling To Keep Pace With A Fourfold Challenge: Device Diversity, Management, Security, And Costs
Base 301 IT decision-makers from enterprises with more than 500 employees in North America, the UK, Germany, France, China, India, and Japan
(multiple responses accepted)
Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Sybase/SAP, June 2012
Mobile Management And Security Are Today’s Greatest IT Priorities
IT is doing more than just prioritizing mobile investments — it’s making big bets on solutions that have the potential to transform how business operates. Mobility, BYOD, and employee self-service are important, but all are usurped by the need for an integrated strategy to support flexible work styles.
While the mobile shift drives employee flexibility and increased levels of productivity, it also introduces considerable risk to your business. CIOs are tackling this challenge head-on by prioritizing mobile security spending and centralizing the development and execution of their corporate mobile strategy (see Figure 4). To support those initiatives, IT managers are making strategic investments in managing:
Devices. To support the increasing diversity of mobile devices and operating systems, the IT decision-makers surveyed invest in a multiplatform mobile device management (MDM) solution to monitor, manage, and
“What challenges, if any, does your firm face when developing and managing smartphone/tablet applications and devices?”
22% 30% 33% 37% 38% 40% 42% 43% 51% 55% 62% 66% 68% Managing expenses/stipends Confusion/concerns around building native apps versus HTML5-based apps Form factor variations within the platforms Onerous and expensive licensing/terms and conditions for the solutions/apps Ensuring customers/employees/partners use the most
up-to-date version of the apps Finding developers with the right skills to design the
user interface and experience Complying with regulatory requirements Rate of releases of the different platforms Integrating the mobile apps with custom back-end systems Managing devices that are used for both personal and corporate apps Securing the apps Providing device security The number of different platforms/operating systems
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secure devices across a broad ecosystem of operating systems and form factors (see Figure 4). This essential technology allows IT to proactively support multiple platforms and device types, extend management and security policy to both corporate-liable and employee-owned devices, and automate service desk support.
Applications. Mobile applications are quickly becoming the primary way employees access corporate data and resources. As firms begin to expand their mobile application portfolios by developing and sourcing more applications, the need to distribute, secure, and manage mobile applications becomes critical. Approximately half of firms worldwide that were surveyed in the Sybase commissioned study plan to support mobile application management (MAM) capabilities, such as application usage and monitoring, enterprise-grade app store functionality, and self-service portals for mobile applications on devices (see Figure 5).
People. Corporate mobile strategies begin with a focus on empowering people to work from anywhere, on any device, across any application. As IT managers embrace this multidevice world through their MDM and MAM investments, it will be important to shift your focus from managing devices and applications to managing your people. As firms selectively embrace BYOD, IT managers must overcome some of the hidden costs and challenges that consumerization introduces without any management, security, legal liability, and cost compromises, and MDM investments are a critical first step in the BYOD journey.
Figure 4
MDM And BYOD Are This Year’s Top Two IT Priorities For Firms Embracing Device Independence
Base: 1,011 decision-makers from enterprises with more than 500 employees in North America, UK, France and Germany (multiple responses accepted)
Source: Forrsights Networks And Telecommunications Survey, Q1 2012, Forrester Research, Inc.
“How will the increasing diversity of end user devices and apps (smartphones and tablets) affect your telecom and network spending between now and the end of 2012?”
11% 11% 13% 18% 21% 23% 24% 39% 58% 59% 65%
Hire a third party to define a formal strategy for device, apps, and data access and provisioning Hire a third party to help us manage the devices Hire a third party to help us define how we will handle security for the devices and the associated apps Implement a chargeback system to allocate the additional costs back to the business Reduce telecom and network spending in other areas to pay for support, access, and apps for these end user devices Invest in a corporate app store to help us manage mobile applications Increase internal staff to support more end user devices Get additional funding from business units to pay for support, access, and apps Increase our central IT budget to include support, access, and apps for these end user devices Develop/implement a "bring-your-own" policy for smartphones/tablets Implement a mobile device management solution to manage the devices
Page 7 Figure 5
Firms Are Doubling Down On Next-Generation Mobile Application Management Capabilities
Base 301 IT decision-makers from enterprises with more than 500 employees in North America, UK, Germany, France, China, India and Japan (multiple responses accepted)
Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Sybase/SAP, June 2012
Key Takeaways
This custom Technology Adoption Profile commissioned by Sybase/SAP yielded three key takeaways:
Corporate BYOD strategy encompasses smartphones and tablets today.
Mobile management and security are the foundation of many organizations’ BYOD strategy.
Today’s mobile policy encompasses devices and applications, as well as individuals’ requirements.
Methodology
This Technology Adoption Profile was commissioned by Sybase/SAP. To create this profile, Forrester leveraged its Forrsights Workforce Employee Survey, Q4 2011, and Forrsights Networks And Telecommunications Survey, Q1 2012. Forrester Consulting supplemented this data with custom survey questions asked of 301 IT decision-makers who are responsible for their company’s corporate mobile strategy at enterprise organizations with 500 or more employees in North America, the UK, Germany, India, China, and Japan. Survey questions related to the challenges
“Which of the following mobile application management capabilities, if any, does your firm plan to deploy within the next 12 to 18 months?”
7% 34% 35% 40% 40% 41% 42% 46% 49% 50%
None — we don't have any capabilities planned Enterprise-grade application store for suggested
apps App integration with leading MEAP vendors and app development companies Over-the-air (OTA) application distribution and control Zero-touch app configuration App assignments by user groups/job functions Certificate delivery for app single sign-on (SSO) App self-service portal on devices Enterprise-grade application store for corporate apps App usage monitoring and logging
Page 8
that result from the proliferation of mobile applications and devices within the workplace, mobile application management capabilities firms have plans to invest in over the next 12 months, from which type of vendor they plan to source their mobile device management capabilities, and the role of cost in building out their
next-generation corporate mobile strategies. The auxiliary survey was conducted in June 2012. For more information on Forrester’s data panel and Tech Industry Consulting services, visit www.forrester.com.
Endnotes
1 Most large organizations already support two, and often more, mobile OSes. In the Forrsights Networks And
Telecommunications Survey, Q1 2011, 49% of enterprises support two or more operating systems. Source: the April 25, 2012, “Survey Employees To Target Mobility Improvements” Forrester Research report.
2 A strong majority (70%) of user respondents to the Forrsights Workforce Employee Survey, Q4 2011, chose the
smartphone they use for work, compared with 28% who indicated that the smartphone they use for work either was issued by their employer (16%) or selected from a list of approved devices (12%).
Source: the April 25, 2012, “Survey Employees To Target Mobility Improvements” Forrester Research report.
3 In the Forrsights Software Survey, Q4 2010, 47% of software decision-makers indicated that they were currently in
the process of developing or had concrete plans to develop their own mobile applications, such as mobile commerce, mobile marketing, and mobile access to back-office applications like ERP. Source: the May 27, 2011, “Forrsights: The Software Market In Transformation, 2011 and Beyond” Forrester Research report.
4 In the study ccommissioned by Sybase / SAP, Forrester asked 301 IT decision-makers from enterprises with more
than 500 employees in North America, UK, Germany, France, China, India, and Japan, “On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is not important at all and 10 is extremely important, how important is the issue of cost when planning for your company’s next-generation mobile strategy?” Seventy-two percent of CIOs surveyed ranked cost as very or extremely important.
About Forrester Consulting
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