Dell Quest Software announced the results of a global survey of IT executives to gauge the level of organizational maturity with existing BYOD strategies, along with realized and anticipated benefits and problems.

The findings conclude that approximately 70% of companies believe BYOD can improve their work processes and help them work better in the future, while an estimated 59% believe they would be at a competitive disadvantage without BYOD.

According to a survey of nearly 1,500 IT decision makers across the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Australia, Singapore, India, and the Beijing region, organizations are optimistic about the potential corporate gains of BYOD, reporting they would be at a competitive disadvantage without it.

Some of the key findings include:

• An estimated three quarters of those polled stated that BYOD can only deliver massive benefits if the specific needs and rights of each user are understood; while only an estimated 17% of organizations encourage BYOD and who actively manage any device employees wish to use — showing they really understand the need to empower employees.
• On average, survey respondents identified four personal gains for their employees, including more flexible working hours, along with the ability to foster creativity, speed innovation, and facilitate teamwork/collaboration.

Roger Bjork, director, Enterprise Mobility Solutions, Dell Software Group comments: “We’re seeing dramatic changes in the way users interact with technology on their personal devices and the critical role BYOD plays in transforming business and IT culture. This global survey confirms what we have long suspected—companies that embrace a user-focused approach to BYOD may reap the biggest rewards, face the fewest obstacles and deliver real and immediate value in terms of greater efficiency, productivity and competitive advantage. Those slow to support BYOD or constrained by a device-centric approach may deal with greater challenges, including the risk of being left behind from a competitive standpoint.”

Embracing BYOD can lead to greater gains:

• According to the survey results, companies with mature BYOD programs are most likely to achieve the most benefits; Beijing was the most optimistic in reporting potential gains.
• Organizations that consider applications part of a robust BYOD strategy are more likely to link and manage devices per user, clearly define roles for their user community in one central database, track and support each user’s level of mobility, and deliver applications to users based on their role within the company.
• A user-centric strategy can have a significant and positive impact reaping rewards for companies in data management and security, as well as employee productivity and customer satisfaction. Approximately 74% experienced improved employee productivity while an estimated 70% saw faster customer response times.
• Companies who embraced BYOD programs experienced improved employee productivity, faster customer response times and improved operational efficiencies.
• Companies with well-established BYOD policies are the least likely to experience any kind of setbacks, with over a quarter of this group experiencing none at all.
• Over half of respondents state that BYOD has completely changed their IT culture (approximately 56%) and/or business culture (approximately 54%) in their organization.

How worldwide BYOD stacks up:

• The U.S., Beijing region and Australia represent the top three countries that encourage BYOD by actively managing and supporting any device that users want to bring into the corporate environment; France, Germany and the U.K. are the bottom three in providing this level of support.
• The two technology areas most commonly implemented first for BYOD are desktop virtualization and mobile device management (MDM). France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and Australia implemented desktop virtualization first, while Singapore, India, Beijing, the U.K., and U.S. started with MDM.
• In India and Beijing, all the organizations polled plan to, or already offer some support for personal devices.
• Only an estimated 19% in Germany said users would be required to purchase a support program for all personal devices—the only country lower than this is the U.K. However, around three in ten organizations in Germany state that their employees will not be required to adhere to any regulations when it comes to devices in their BYOD policy.
• Beijing, India and France were the top three countries to report that any BYOD support policies would require employees to ready their own devices for corporate use.