Businesses failing to get to grips with mobile device use

Figures from Kaseya show a growing number of UK workplaces see mobile access as a critical or fairly important part of their strategy

Almost a third (29 per cent) of workplaces across Europe have no policies in place to deal with the increasing headache of mobile device use, research from Kaseya has claimed.

The survey, which questioned more than 500 IT professionals across Europe, revealed that 67 per cent of respondents saw mobile access as either critical or fairly important to their business.

In the UK specifically the figure was higher, with 81 per cent seeing it as critical or fairly important.

In addition, 30 per cent of businesses said a vast majority of staff were regularly using mobile devices for work purposes and the biggest concerns were data loss (39 per cent), data leaks (33 per cent), theft of contacts (23 per cent) and availability (16 per cent). In the UK the annual cost of data loss was more than €5,000 (£4,300), according to the report.

Koby Amedume, marketing director at Kaseya, said: “We know that addressing the challenges of mobile devices on the corporate network has become a mission-critical operation for IT staff. This research highlights the need for IT departments across Europe to ensure they are able to securely and easily allow access to their network from mobile devices – whether these are from laptop computers, smartphone devices or the increasing number of tablets on the market.

“The challenge for IT departments is to allow full device management across the plethora of products now available and being introduced to the company by employees,” he added.