While the BYO trend is most commonly associated with employee-owned smartphones and tablets entering the workplace, new research by Cloud and mobile services vendor, LogMeIn, sheds light on another growing aspect of employee-driven tech adoption: the rise and impact of bring your own apps (BYOA).
The survey, which polled more than 1200 SMBs worldwide found that nearly 70 per cent of SMBs report active use of employee-introduced applications, including Cloud sync and storage collaboration apps, productivity apps, and social apps.
More than a third of those surveyed felt this trend will increase significantly over the next five years.
In addition to that, 22 per cent of SMB IT pros indicated to be fully prepared to handle BYOA and 43 per cent are concerned with lack of control over these apps.
It also showed that most SMB IT pros expect their policies to increasingly embrace and encourage the use of such apps over the next couple years. A/NZ survey responses closely mirror the results and trends from the other regions surveyed.
According to LogMeIn products senior vice-president, Andrew Burton, in spite of inherent security concerns, there is an increasing number of businesses embracing the rise of employee-introduced applications entering the workplace. “Like BYOD, the BYOA trend is likely to introduce a fresh set of IT challenges when it comes to managing a relatively unpredictable, heterogeneous environment — a modern workplace reality that blurs the line between devices and data ownership,” Burton said.
