Managing Enterprise Mobile: The Challenges of BYOD, Rapid Adoption, Device Churn, and Device Diversity

The task of providing enterprise support for mobile devices has become an enormous challenge for many organizations.  The support challenges include the rapid adoption of mobile, the frequency of device churn, device diversity, and the ability to troubleshoot the complete spectrum of mobile problems.  BoxTone recently published the results a survey that attempts to identify the mobile support issues that businesses are grappling with.  An infographic summarizing the results of the study are available here.

Enterprise IT & Support Face a Relentless March toward Full Employee Mobilization
Enterprise adoption of mobile is increasing annually.  In 2013, 57 percent of enterprises report that half or more of their employees connect their mobile devices to the enterprise.  That’s up from 30-40 percent in 2012, and 20-30 percent in 2011.  Brian Reed, Chief Product Officer at BoxTone, said that “while adoption still varies across companies, trending data shows the entire bell curve moving upward, with 12% of companies reporting an 80-100% mobilization.  Clearly, there is a maturation of mobile deployment in the workplace, where it’s moved from the pilot stage to crossing the threshold into more mainstream adoption. Companies can no longer ignore the management and support challenges of wide-scale mobile deployments.”

Rapid Growth, Diversity and Churn Compounds stress on Enterprise IT & Support
50 percent of organization say that half or more of their employees will likely migrate or switch from one device to a different one over the course of a year.  Reed said that “brilliant device innovation coupled with aggressive competition will keep users migrating and switching to get the latest features and form factors.  In the past, IT and support teams standardized on one PC format and vendor to more predictably and cost-effectively scale out their PC deployments — but the explosion of mobile diversity with hundreds of different devices has thrown that out the window permanently. IT and support teams accustomed to the predictable three-year PC refresh pattern are now strained when trying to manage a rate of change that has collapsed from years to months.”

Top Roadblocks for BYOD Expansion & Adoption: Support Complexity, Device Diversity, and Costs
57 percent of businesses report that just the complexity of technology is their number one road block in attempting to realize a BYOD strategy.
Reed said that “more employees are now using a wider variety of mobile devices, apps and services, with the expectations of problem free, uninterrupted service. This wide diversity and always-on imperative have collided to make efficient service desk support a far more complex undertaking, and in many cases uncharted territory for service desk staff.”

Mobile Support Friction is Growing: Longer Downtimes, Higher Support Costs
The BoxTone report found that 50 percent of the companies surveyed were spending more than 30 minutes to troubleshoot mobile issues, and 20 percent said they often spend hours or days trying to resolve mobile issues.  Reed said that “when the average trouble ticket costs $50 to $100+ and the typical mobile user has two to three issues per year, there’s a hidden, multi-million dollar financial toll that is just starting to dawn on enterprises. Employee downtime and frustration only add to the pain.”