U.S. Leads BYOD Implementation, but EU Holds Back

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Over the years, BYOD has moved beyond being just an employee mobility model; from giving employees the flexibility to work from anywhere, with their own choice of device, to a cost-cutting tool: replacing company-owned devices with employees own personal devices. BYOD implementation has also been much more economical than traditional enterprise purchasing, while providing the network infrastructure and support required by users. However, according to Strategy Analytics' latest enterprise survey, security and value for money remain the major challenges around BYOD implementations. The implementation of EU GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) in May 2018 will create greater headaches for BYOD environments.

The survey highlights:

• The trend of adding mobile security tools is rising – the U.S. is the largest market for Personal Liable devices.
• SMB adoption of BYOD is strong in the US, compared to the UK, France and Germany.
• Corporate-liable devices dominate in EU countries in both SMB and Corporate environments.
• Security concerns are the key reason why about 10% of companies in U.S, UK, France and Germany expect personal-liable tablets to decrease over next year.
• Enterprise mobility management (EMM) is the top tool businesses use to manage business data on personal-liable devices, however nearly 1/3 do not manage corporate information on PL devices at all!
• Mobile security management, device procurement, and device provisioning are the top mobility management strategies implemented by organizations.
• Anti-virus/malware, secure VPN, data encryption, and device locking, are the top most important features being implemented.

"Mobile security is the greatest concern among surveyed business respondents. However, there are many companies who still do not manage corporate information on Personal-Liable devices. When GDPR comes into force in 2018, it is going to have a significant impact on BYOD growth. Companies cannot reasonably believe that they are providing adequate security for personal data unless it can demonstrate that it has implemented appropriate EMM, containers, controls and procedures, to ensure separation of business data from personal data on the device," said Gina Luk, Principal Analyst of Mobile Workforce Strategies at Strategy Analytics.

"EMM is recommended under California cyber-security law. Hence, we envision a negative impact on BYOD, as companies will be less willing to face repercussions or overlooking any aspects of the new directive. We suspect it will also encourage larger firms to employ additional lawyers, to ensure company processes guarantee compliance with the new directive. In fact, cost savings from BYOD are not comparable to the financial damage and reputational risk that can be incurred as a result of lost or stolen data and the security implications that a data breach entails," added Andrew Brown, Executive Director of Enterprise Research at Strategy Analytics.

Strategy Analytics interviewed 1,200 IT decision makers across 9 vertical markets in the U.S., UK, France, and Germany in in the first quarter of 2017.

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