Survey Finds Organizations Are Realizing Significant Benefits by Adopting “Bring Your Own” Device Policies

Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS) today announced the results of the Citrix Bring-Your-Own (BYO) Index revealing that 92 percent of IT organizations are aware that employees are using their own devices in the workplace and 94 percent intend to have a formal BYO policy in place by mid-2013, up from 44 percent today. The research found that attracting and retaining the highest quality talent, increased worker productivity and mobility and greater employee satisfaction, as well as reducing IT costs, are the primary drivers of BYO adoption.

“There are two reasons that BYO is being embraced within organizations,” stated Mick Hollison, vice president, Desktop Marketing & Strategy, for Citrix. “There are those that are using BYO to keep up with the rapid consumerization of enterprise IT and then there are forward-thinking CIOs who have embraced BYO as a way to attract the best talent, encourage a flexible working environment and raise productivity levels.”

Desktop Virtualization is a Key Enabler

Sixty two percent of surveyed organizations indicated that they have already invested or plan to invest in desktop virtualization, technology that allows organizations to manage Windows-based desktops centrally in the datacenter, then deliver them to all types of users across the enterprise. Eighty percent of those organizations intend to leverage their desktop virtualization investment to support employee-owned devices and BYO. This trend is driven by the fact that desktop virtualization addresses the two key challenges cited by survey participants – security and device management. By enabling IT to centrally manage and secure desktops, applications, and data in the datacenter, business information is always secure. Even when data is stored on the end point device, IT has the ability to remotely erase data in the event the device is lost or stolen. Desktop virtualization makes it possible for IT to deliver desktops and apps straight from the datacenter to any device, making device management radically simpler.

“Desktop virtualization enables IT to fundamentally rethink the way user hardware is provisioned by making a reliance on a limited number of corporate-standard PCs, laptops and smartphones a thing of the past,” stated Hollison. “It also provides a safe way of delivering a desktop to any employee, on any device, wherever they are, with the a consistent high definition user experience.”

Evolution of Devices will be a Driver

The survey also revealed that the types of devices used by workers will continue to evolve in the coming years. The most popular devices brought into the workplace today are the laptop and smartphone. However, most companies anticipate that within two years, the use of tablet computers as the primary personal computing device will rise significantly to almost 23 percent from just 8 percent today. IT decision-makers also believe they will need to manage a wide range of tablet platforms by 2013 including Apple iOS, Android, Blackberry and Windows. Desktop virtualization technologies will make it possible for IT to support this growing device diversity with a universal way to deliver desktops and apps from the datacenter.

Other Key Findings

The primary benefits of BYO are improved employee satisfaction at 57 percent, increased worker productivity at 52 percent, greater mobility for workers at 51 percent, more flexible work environments for employees at 46 percent and reduced IT costs at 36 percent.
Forty-four percent of organizations intend to pay employees a stipend roughly equivalent to the cost of its own IT department procuring and managing a comparable device and 31 percent plan to help offset some of the cost.
Ninety four percent of IT decision makers indicated that the introduction of a BYO policy has predominantly been led by the IT department. They also noted that other departments are getting involved in the development of BYO policies with Human Resources participating in 39 percent of organizations, Legal in 35 percent and Finance departments in 29 percent.

Related Links

Whitepaper: IT Organizations Embrace Bring-Your-Own Devices
Webpage: Citrix BYO solutions
Expert blog: Flying Free: My First 30 Days as a Citrix Remote Employee
Expert blog: My experience with Desktop as a Service (DaaS) and why I think Desktop as a Device is Dead!
Expert blog: A Look at Bring Your Own Devices in the Enterprise
Expert blog: Getting Consumerization Right With Citrix and Microsoft

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Sample size

The research for the Citrix BYO Index was conducted independently by Vanson Bourne in May 2011, and is based on 700 IT professionals across seven markets. One hundred IT professionals were surveyed in each of seven markets including: Australia, Canada, Germany, India, Netherlands, United States and United Kingdom. In each country, half of the respondents represented companies of 500-1,000 employees and the other half work for companies of 1,000+ employees.

About Citrix

Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS) is a leading provider of virtual computing solutions that help people work and play from anywhere on any device. More than 230,000 enterprises rely on Citrix to create better ways for people, IT and business to work through virtual meetings, desktops and datacenters. Citrix virtualization, networking and cloud solutions deliver over 100 million corporate desktops and touch 75 percent of Internet users each day. Citrix partners with over 10,000 companies in 100 countries. Annual revenue in 2010 was $1.87 billion.

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