4. State of Mobility Survey
Executive Summary
It seems like just a few years ago that the Internet completely changed the way we do
business. And now we are seeing it again, with mobile devices as the catalyst. Once mostly
forbidden by IT, smartphones are now being used by hundreds of millions of employees
throughout the world to access corporate information to keep up in today’s 24/7 business
world.
Symantec commissioned the 2012 State of Mobility survey to gauge how organizations are
coping with this trend. Applied Research spoke with 6,275 organizations of all sizes in 43
countries from August to November of 2011.
Our survey shows that we have reached a tipping point in the business use of mobile
devices. Most organizations are making line-of-business application available. They are
also developing custom applications, and even making plans to create corporate app stores
for employees to download approved software.
All this points to the goal of improving corporate agility. Businesses want to improve
efficiency and increase workplace effectiveness, as well as get things done quicker, and
mobility offers them the chance to do that.
But there’s a price. Organizations are aware of the potential dangers mobility can pose,
rating it highest among IT initiatives in risk. They’re worried about losing devices, data
loss and malware infecting the corporate network through smartphones and tablets.
And there’s good reason for these concerns. Businesses are losing a significant amount
of money to incidents relating to mobile devices – as much as USD$429,000 annually in
the case of large enterprises. Despite these costs, however, organizations feel the risks are
worth the benefits, and they are working to implement security measures to rein in these
costs and keep their corporate information safe.
4 | Symantec State of Mobility Survey
6. Methodology
Symantec commissioned Applied Research to field the State of Mobility survey
from August through November of 2011. They contacted a total of 6,275
businesses, with the number of employees ranging from 5 to more than 5,000.
Among small businesses, the survey respondents were the person in charge of
computers. Among enterprises, we contacted senior IT and C-level executives.
The poll has a reliability of 95% confidence with +/- 1.3% margin of error.
6 | Symantec State of Mobility Survey
7. North America Latin America EMEA APJ
United States ................... 500 Brazil ................................ 150 United Kingdom ............... 200 China ................................ 300
Canada ............................. 875 Mexico .............................. 150 Germany........................... 200 Japan................................ 300
NOLA ................................ 100 France............................... 200 Australia ........................... 300
SOLA................................. 100 Italy .................................. 200 New Zealand..................... 150
Sweden............................. 100 India ................................. 250
Norway ............................. 100 Singapore ......................... 200
Spain ................................ 100 South Korea...................... 150
Israel................................. 100 Hong Kong........................ 150
Belgium ............................ 100 Malaysia ........................... 150
Netherlands...................... 100 Taiwan .............................. 150
South Africa ..................... 100 Thailand ........................... 150
Russia............................... 100 Phillippines ...................... 150
Poland .............................. 100 Indonesia.......................... 150
Vietnam ............................ 150
7 | Symantec State of Mobility Survey
8. Finding 1
“We wanted a smaller
Tipping point in mobility adoption
leaner workforce, and
Times are changing for businesses, and in no area is this
more readily apparent than in mobility. These devices mobile tech was the
have become essential tools for conducting business.
real secret to develop-
Employees are seeing significantly improved productivity
by being able to access business resources from anywhere. ing that.”
Organizations are now commonly making line-of-business
applications accessible from mobile devices – 59 percent
of respondents reported this to be the case. In fact, now CIO for large apparel
enterprise
that mobile devices are commonplace, nearly three-
quarters (71 percent) of businesses are now looking at
implementing a corporate “store” for mobile applications.
In order to better understand why organizations are
adopting mobile computing, we asked them about the
most important business benefits. They mentioned
increased efficiency, increased workplace effectiveness
and reduced time required to accomplish tasks. Taken
together, these all benefit their business agility.
In many areas of IT, the expectations of implementing
a new technology are not always matched by the
results. In the case of mobility, however, expectations
much more closely matched reality. For example,
about three-quarters of businesses expected to
increase efficiency through mobile computing,
and the full 73 percent did realize that gain.
8 | Symantec State of Mobility Survey
9. These results largely held true for small businesses and
enterprises alike, with efficiency being their top goal. Enterprises
were slightly more optimistic in the benefits they would realize,
not quite doing as well as they expected, while SMBs had slightly
lower expectations that were exceeded. The main difference
was that smaller businesses were less likely than enterprises
to have plans regarding custom apps or corporate app stores.
North America is lagging somewhat behind the curve in
mainstream business use of mobile computing, and Latin America
is ahead in areas such as line-of-business applications (67
percent compared to 53 percent for North America) and planning
corporate app stores (70 percent compared to 52 percent).
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10. Which applications do your employees currently use for business
purposes on their mobile devices?
53%
Sales force automation (SFA) or CRM
51%
58%
Line of business applications
59%
58%
Social media applications
62%
61%
Task and project management
63%
65% Within Next
Office applications 12 Months
71%
Now
65%
Instant messaging
73%
66%
Calendar application
75%
69%
Contacts
80%
70%
Web browser
80%
75%
Email
86%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Do you have plans to roll out a private 'app store' where employees can get
officially supported applications for their mobile devices?
Already implemented 11%
Implementing 19%
Discussing 36%
No plans 34%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%
Please indicate how important each of the following business
benefits are for mobile computing:
(Somewhat/Extremely important)
Reduce cost of doing business 66%
Gain competitive advantage 66%
Employee satisfaction 68%
Improve decision-making 68%
Increase sales 69%
Improved customer relations 69%
Employee productivity 70%
Increase business agility 70%
Reduce time to accomplish business tasks 71%
Increase workforce effectiveness 71%
Increase efficiency 73%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%
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12. Finding 2
“It’s very competitive,
Mobile initiatives significantly impacting IT resources
and we want to make
Mobility is providing useful benefits, but it’s also creating
challenges for IT as they balance it with other areas of
sure none of our trade
focus. Nearly half of the organizations we surveyed (48 secrets get into the
percent) see mobile computing as somewhat to extremely
challenging, and it is requiring effort to manage. In fact,
wrong hands.”
31 percent of IT staff is involved in some way with mobile
computing. They reported that their top priorities are
security, backup and dealing with lost or stolen devices.
Mobility ranked as the leading IT risk among
organizations, being cited as one of the top three risk
CIO for large apparel
areas by 41 percent of respondents – more than any other enterprise
initiative, including virtualization, Web 2.0 and even
public cloud computing. They have a variety of concerns,
including device loss, data leakage, unauthorized
access to corporate resources and malware infection.
One in four respondents felt that the risks of mobile
computing are somewhat to extremely high, and they
identify the fastest growing risks as spam, phishing
and malware. In response to these perceived risks, most
organizations are at least discussing a range of security
measures, from antivirus software to remote disabling of
devices. When it comes to implementing these measures,
however, less than half have taken those steps.
Is this lack of security affecting businesses?
12 | Symantec State of Mobility Survey
13. What are the top three computing initiative risks in terms of the
level of risk they introduce for your organization?
(In the top 3)
Web 2.0 20%
Upgrading to Windows 7 27%
eCommerce 27%
Private cloud computing 27%
Virtualization 28%
Data center consolidation 29%
Business intelligence 30%
Infrastructure 31%
Public cloud computing 35%
Mobile computing 41%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45%
How would you characterize the level of risk your organization
faces in conjunction with mobile computing?
Extremely high risk levels 3%
Somewhat high risk levels 21%
Neutral 41%
Somewhat low risk levels 27%
Extremely low risk levels 9%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45%
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14. Finding 3
Mobile risks impacting organizations “We’ve had incidents of
In a word, yes. Small and large businesses alike are seeing employees losing their
damages mount due to mobility-related security issues.
smartphones… it could
They have suffered a variety of losses, measured by direct
financial expenses, loss of data, and damage to the brand amount to $30,000.”
or loss of customer trust. Within the last 12 months, the
average cost of these losses was a surprising $247,000
overall. Large enterprises and small businesses are largely
experiencing the same kinds of loss, but to a very different
degree – small businesses averaged $126,000 of loss,
while enterprises averaged $429,000. The average losses
also varied widely according to region, from a low in Asia IT manager for mid-
sized healthcare
($199,000) to a high in Latin America ($385,000). company
In the end, however, most organizations feel that mobility
is worth the challenges. Nearly three-quarters (71 percent)
feel that they at least break even on the risks vs. rewards.
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15. Please assign a total value, in monetary terms, of each of these
losses in the past 12 months:
(Means shown)
Regulatory fines $124,412
Reduced stock price $169,280
Costs to comply with regulations after an attack $75,109
Direct financial cost (money or goods) $132,236
Litigation costs $70,180
Loss of organization, customer or employee data $81,877
Lost productivity $129,326
Damaged brand reputation $144,560
Loss of customer trust/damaged customer relationships $242,428
Lost revenue $329,199
$0 $50,000 $100,000 $150,000 $200,000 $250,000 $300,000 $350,000
Which losses have you incurred due to mobile computing during
the past 12 months?
Regulatory fines 8%
Reduced stock price 9%
Litigation costs 19%
Costs to comply with regulations after an attack 19%
Lost revenue 20%
Loss of customer trust/damaged customer relationships 20%
Damaged brand reputation 21%
Loss of organization, customer or employee data 23%
Direct financial cost (money or goods) 31%
Lost productivity 33%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%
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16. Key Recommendations
As organizations work to realize the competitive advantage offered
through the adoption of mobile computing, Symantec offers the following
recommendations to improve the effectiveness of mobile initiatives:
• Enable broadly. Mobility offers tremendous opportunities for organizations 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.
16 | Symantec State of Mobility Survey
