While consumer mobile ownership rates in Australia are sky high, Australian businesses are falling behind when it comes to managing and empowering the mobile workforce.
Acronis’ 2013 Data Protection Trends research report found that more than 60% of Australian businesses still lack a ‘Bring Your Own Device’ (BYOD) policy, and 80% of Aussie companies are not training their staff on BYOD best practices.
A May 2013 ‘Make Me Mobile’ research report by Canon Business Services, found that 51% of Australian SMB decision-makers believe that mobile devices are critical for them and employees to complete their jobs. Despite this, only a quarter of respondents had access to all of their company information or documents from their mobiles.
BYOD is a key enabler of productivity in the workplace, and at the very least a BYOD policy implies a level of security in terms of managing corporate data on a mobile device.
A truly mobile-centric and empowered BYOD program looks to leverage the amazing functionality of mobile phones and tablets to increase productivity and growth though. Productivity and growth: what business manager doesn’t want more of that?
So if mobile ownership rates in Australia lead the world, we can hope to see a large uptake of Australian companies developing BYOD policies in 2014
Having a mobile strategy that marries traditional desktops and IT hardware with mobile devices can boost productivity (e.g. printing on-the-go, filing enterprise grade time sheets or editing sensitive information on a personal tablet device) and enable flexibility for staff. SMBs should speak with their IT service providers about cloud powered mobile solutions that enable BYOD to power mobile device management, printing-on-the-go and enterprise mobile apps.
While the idea of activating a mobile strategy within a BYOD environment may sound daunting to SMB business owners, it doesn’t need to be about deploying expensive or cumbersome technology for technology’s sake. Canon Business Services produce mobile apps that quickly and easily enable BYOD mobiles to interface with enterprise printers.
There are also many inexpensive and secure cloud-based software services and apps like Google Drive and Evernote that can enable staff to view, edit and share company data from their mobile devices at a cost far less than enterprise grade software licenses.