U.S. corporations tend to be far more concerned with the brand of mobile devices in the workplace and less worried about which employees have access to company data, according to a Dell survey of 1,500 senior IT managers in 10 countries. The survey looked at bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trends and plans.
In the survey, employees from Singapore said their companies are the most proactive in using digital rights management rather than device-level access management to control the flow of potentially sensitive company information. The nations included in the survey were the U.S., France, Germany, Spain, Italy, the U.K., Australia, Singapore, India, and the Beijing region of China.
[ Also on InfoWorld: The realist's guide to BYOD and why it's a long-term trend. | For iOS, Android, BlackBerry OS, and Windows Phone: Learn how to manage mobile devices in InfoWorld's 20-page BYOD and Mobile Management Deep Dive PDF special report. | Subscribe to InfoWorld's Consumerization of IT newsletter today. ]
Among the questions, Dell asked IT managers: "Should companies focus on users or devices when developing a BYOD strategy?"
Thirty percent of managers in the U.S. said their companies are more likely to focus on users over devices. In Singapore, that number was more than twice as high, with 63 percent of managers saying they would focus more on users. Forty-one percent of those surveyed in Germany said their companies put users ahead of devices, while 56 percent said the same thing in the U.K.
Dell's survey results are supported by past surveys from service providers and research firms such as PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). A 2012 global survey of CIOs by PwC found that 28 percent said their workforce was using personal devices for work-related tasks. That percentage is expected to rise to 35 percent by mid-2013.
In a survey last year, PwC said U.S. IT managers indicated BYOD is on their radar, yet most businesses have not yet developed appropriate policies. According to PwC, just 43 percent of respondents said that their organization has implemented a security strategy for the use of employee-owned devices. And only 27 percent of U.S. respondents believed their mobile security was adequate to pass an audit.
"CIOs must rethink the traditional, rigid approach to governing access to data, applications, and networks," PwC wrote in its survey report. "What is needed is a device-agnostic strategy that leverages investments in the employee's personal technology to create a more mobile, agile and cost-effective platform for the business."
Dell's survey results were similar. About three quarters of those polled by Dell said that BYOD can only deliver massive benefits if the specific needs and rights of each user are understood; while only an estimated 17 percent of organizations encourage BYOD and actively manage any device employees wish to use -- showing they understand the need to empower employees.
