Techaisle Blog

Techaisle SMB and Midmarket Mobility Adoption Trends data shows that BYOD is not a factor in every SMB’s mobility strategy: more than half of small business (1-99 employees) respondents to the Techaisle SMB survey report that all or essentially all of the mobile devices in use are owned by the business, and nearly 25% of midmarket enterprises own 90%+ of their mobile device portfolios. However, BYOD is widespread within this group: 36% of the devices used by small businesses and 43% of those in use within midmarket firms are owned by employees.

The term BYOD has only been around since 2009, when it is said to have originated at Intel – but it has since become ubiquitous. A web search on the term will return nearly 10 million hits, and IT managers at organizations of all sizes and from nearly all industry sectors are very familiar with demands for connecting employee-owned mobile devices to corporate IT networks, applications and data resources.

Techaisle survey data shows that BYOD within SMBs comes in several ‘flavors.’ One of them is where employee both selects and pays for a new device, delighting the SMB finance, but causing problems for IT. Another flavor is CYOD, where employee pays for the device but selects it based on guidelines or an approved list. It appeals to both the SMB and IT but is not completely satisfactory for the employee. Third flavor is where it is a mix of two with some level of reimbursement for the purchase from the company and/or technical support for the devices. This has an upside because the employee selects technology that he/she is comfortable with but the downside is that the cost burden rests, at least to some extent, with the company rather than the employee.

Techaisle SMB and Midmarket mobility adoption survey data also shows that BYOD has implications on desktop and notebook purchases.

Techaisle’s global SMB survey shows that mobility security is the 2nd top IT challenge for small businesses and 4th top IT challenge for midmarket businesses. To delve deeper, during the course of the Techaisle SMB 2015 Mobility Adoption & Trends survey, respondents were asked “When it comes to security risk in the mobile computing context, which of the following represents a source of exposure or uncertainty within your organization?” To a surprisingly high degree of candidness SMB concerns with mobility security revolved around users. As figure below demonstrates, SMB IT respondents ranked three user-attributable issues

1. User neglect/irresponsibility,
2. Lack of user knowledge/awareness, and
3. User mishap

amongst their top five concerns, trailing only “general malware infection” as a mobility security threat. Data is where the user is and to say that the enemy is inside the tent would be an understatement.

SMBs recognize the exposure and vulnerability but Techaisle survey shows that only 16% of SMBs worldwide are fully prepared to handle mobility security challenges. Data also shows that like manageability, security is an important constraint on mobility adoption within the SMB market. Most MSPs, channel partners and suppliers continue to focus on BDR and/or anti-malware security as they are easy to offer and deploy but they represent a very narrow approach to larger security issues within SMBs.

If the “office” is defined by devices then “workplace” is defined by the ability to work from wherever those devices (and their users) are located. In this vein, “work” typically includes a requirement to access corporate data with mobile devices.

Data from the Techaisle 2015 SMB Mobility Adoption and Trends survey finds that more than 80% of small business employees and 55% of workers in midmarket firms require mobile access to company data. Providing this access and the applications, devices and solutions represents an enormous investment for SMBs that are typically very conservative in their IT budget allocations.

By more than a 2:1 ratio, SMB respondents believe that mobility is a means of driving growth in the business. But mobility does not deliver business benefits painlessly. The introduction of mobility solutions has created new issues for IT management, and suppliers who can help to address these issues will gain favor in this community.

Addressing the needs of the “dual mode” user is a non-trivial issue. In the Techaisle survey, both small and midmarket firms report that users access a combination of business and personal resources via their business-connected (both corporate-owned and BYOD) mobile devices. This reinforces the importance of some of the solutions being currently used or planning to be used by SMBs. These are solutions that help manage mobile devices that deliver access to corporate information without downloading data and applications themselves (such as thin clients and Windows-as-a-Service) and methods of securing data when it is exchanged between mobile devices and external users and where users themselves move seamlessly between corporate and personal usage modes on devices that are connected to corporate networks.

Mobile devices are an essential component of mobility but mobility itself extends beyond hardware to applications, solutions and work habits. Techaisle’s 2015 SMB Mobility Adoption Trends research shows that the “dual mode” SMB user represents a specific problem for SMB IT staff and the challenges of supporting a mobile workforce go well beyond the device.

Small and midsized businesses have different challenges in supporting the mobile workforce

Looking first at the small businesses, we see that managing TCO – which includes, in addition to typical IT expenses, service charges that are unique to mobile devices – is rated as the most significant challenge by small business respondents. These firms also struggle with the “on ramps” to mobility: finding appropriate suppliers and solutions and integrating multiple screens are also ranked in the top five challenges encountered by 1-99 employee firms in support of the mobile workforce.

Midmarket firms also count TCO as their most significant challenge. Rather than struggling with mobility on ramps, though, midmarket firms are more concerned with security/data protection and mobile management. Network security, protecting corporate data on mobile devices and managing these devices are all top-five mobility challenges for midmarket IT – and further evidence of why mobility solutions addressing these issues are essential to this community.

Techaisle’s 2015 SMB and Midmarket Mobility Adoption study shows that to emerge as leaders in the mobility solution market, suppliers will need to tailor their offerings and strategies to specific clusters within the SMB market. Successful suppliers will need to be cognizant of, and visible in addressing, key SMB selection criteria.

Figure below presents an analysis of SMB mobility solution evaluation criteria, tied to the attitudinal groups used for SMB segmentation analysis. This segmentation and perspective highlights how increased sophistication changes the requirements that SMB users have of suppliers.

Small Business Segments
Within the small businesses, the Pre-IT segment is looking first and foremost for a trusted brand. These small business buyers opt for horizontal suppliers for their first step into mobility solutions. Data from other segments suggests that increasing sophistication leads to more exacting expectations.

Basic IT buyers are looking for help with managing BYOD and for effective customer support, while Advanced IT buyers look for assurances of information security, for manageability, and for suppliers’ credible brands.

Midmarket segments
“Manageability” is the most essential attribute for suppliers targeting midmarket firms. The basic IT segment is looking for assistance in supporting a large number of mobile platforms as a means of dealing with the BYOD needs of a larger (relative to small business) workforce, and/or as a means of supporting customer access to public systems.

The midmarket Advanced IT group, like its small business peers, requires a combination of manageability and information security, and adds customer support and the requirement for multi-device/platform support.

The enterprise IT group –the largest spenders represented in this chart – have a few unique requirements. This group demands interoperability and customizability as it seeks to integrate mobility solutions within the broader IT infrastructure, and looks as well for ease of use as it rolls out mobility solutions to a (relatively) large and diverse workforce. Techaisle expects that over time, an increasing number of SMBs will pursue these capabilities as they, too, tie mobility into their overall IT/business architectures.