Aruba Networks (NASDAQ: ARUN) today revealed a new global study
highlighting that seven in ten (70%) IT professionals are under
increasing pressure to deliver and support an all-wireless workplace
from their top executives and #GenMobile
employees who are demanding greater flexibility and better collaboration.
Building on a recent
mobile worker study, Aruba surveyed 1,000 global IT professionals to
understand how they are managing #GenMobile employees, and
simultaneously commissioned The
Future Laboratory, a renowned trend-forecasting consultancy, to
conduct a separate, but related, study which examines how the workplace
will look in the near future.
Both studies suggest that the creation of an agile, all-wireless
workplace is no longer an option, but a requirement. In addition to a
significant competitive advantage, business leaders now recognize that
the benefits of this approach include employee retention, productivity,
and cost savings. However, the results highlight that today just 14% of
employees enjoy the flexibility and freedom of such a workplace,
suggesting that global businesses still have a lot of work to do.
Managing #GenMobile: Key findings
-
51% of global organizations saw a rise in mobile/remote working last
year and 77% noted an increase in #GenMobile employees using mobile
devices for work during the past year.
-
The spike in mobility has resulted in nearly 70% of IT professionals
feeling pressure to deliver improvements in mobile working.
-
To support top executives and #GenMobile mobility demands, 71.1% of IT
departments increased their investment in Wi-Fi, while another 46%
were granted increased budgets for future mobility projects.
-
55.5% of companies surveyed globally actually encourage or have no
policy banning the use of personal devices at work. Only 12.4%
discourage the use of personal devices for work.
-
76.6% of C-level executives expressed greater levels of interest in
mobile technologies in the workplace to support #GenMobile employees.
-
The debate about how to support BYOD is becoming a thing of the
past as 58.7% of IT professionals said their company has already fully
embraced employee BYOD or implemented new policies to support it.
“Executives and #GenMobile employees alike prefer an increasingly mobile
style of working and IT organizations are feeling the pressure to adapt
existing technology investments to meet their requirements,” said Ben
Gibson, chief marketing officer for Aruba Networks. “The workplace of
the future will not only need to be rightsized to align with IT budgets
but it will also require a mobility-centric and secure wireless
infrastructure, a move towards employee self-service, and a willingness
to embrace consumer IT technologies to enhance #GenMobile productivity.”
Mobile Technology Investment – 2013/2014
The chart below highlights how IT investments for mobility technologies
have changed over the past year.
Answer Options
|
|
Increased
|
|
Decreased
|
|
No Change
|
Wi-Fi
|
|
71.1%
|
|
0.9%
|
|
28.0%
|
Mobile Device Management
|
|
51%
|
|
1.0%
|
|
48.0%
|
Network Access Control
|
|
48%
|
|
1%
|
|
51%
|
Smartphones
|
|
59.5%
|
|
2.6%
|
|
37.9%
|
Tablets
|
|
64.9%
|
|
2.1%
|
|
33.0%
|
Mobile Unified Communications
|
|
35%
|
|
2.0%
|
|
63%
|
Mobile Application Development
|
|
35.2%
|
|
2.2%
|
|
62.6%
|
Aruba customer, Russell Hookway, Network and Telecommunications Manager
at Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, a large municipality in west
London, commented: “Technology should be an enabler for our staff.
Across our council, employees are now actively choosing a ‘mobile-first’
working model, because it makes them more efficient. Creating an
environment that supports this model makes good business sense. Our new
message to workers is work where you want, when you want and how you
want. No questions asked.”
The survey results show that mobility is a highly desirable productivity
tool but not at the expense of corporate or personal security. When IT
professionals were asked about security concerns as they relate to
mobility, 73.5% assessed mobility security requirements based on the
devices’ security features or the employees’ mobile work requirements.
Only 13.3% responded that security concerns have stopped them from
allowing mobile work capabilities for #GenMobile employees.
“Businesses are starting to realize the clear benefits of mobility,”
Gibson continued. “It’s now essential they make the right investment
decisions to secure the business and employee.”
An Outlook: The Future Workplace
According to The Future Laboratory’s report, the term “office” will
become obsolete as a new model for work emerges. The emerging workplace
will facilitate a flexible work culture in a society where the nine to
five workday is increasingly the exception rather than the rule. The
modern workplace will be a hub with a blend of business/leisure
travelers, shared workspaces and flexible work environments.
“New technologies and new ways of doing business are irreversibly
transforming the way we design offices as well as the way we
fundamentally think of workspaces,” said The Future Laboratory
co-founder, Chris Sanderson. “Cloud-based technologies and the increased
use of mobile devices as our work tools of choice are ushering in a new
social, cultural and corporate paradigm where workplaces are more
federated and collaborative, less hierarchical and increasingly less
location-specific, as more of #GenMobile employees clock in by logging
on.”
“We are no longer simply business people at work and private people at
home,” said Martin Lindstrom, author and brand futurist. “People are
checking personal emails at work and work emails at home. The lines
between work and play are merging on all levels.”
To read more, download the The Future Laboratory’s report via this link: http://www.arubanetworks.com/futuresreport
Additional Resources
About Aruba Networks, Inc.
Aruba Networks is a leading provider of next-generation network access
solutions for the mobile enterprise. The company designs and delivers
Mobility-Defined Networks that empower IT departments and #GenMobile, a
new generation of tech-savvy users who rely on their mobile devices for
every aspect of work and personal communication. To create a mobility
experience that #GenMobile and IT can rely upon, Aruba Mobility-Defined
Networks™ automate infrastructure-wide performance optimization and
trigger security actions that used to require manual IT intervention.
The results are dramatically improved productivity and lower operational
costs.
Listed on the NASDAQ and Russell 2000® Index, Aruba is based in
Sunnyvale, California, and has operations throughout the Americas,
Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific regions. To learn more,
visit Aruba at http://www.arubanetworks.com.
For real-time news updates follow Aruba on Twitter
and Facebook,
and for the latest technical discussions on mobility and Aruba products
visit Airheads Social at http://community.arubanetworks.com.
© 2014 Aruba Networks, Inc. Aruba Networks’ trademarks include Aruba
Networks®, Aruba The Mobile Edge Company® (stylized), Aruba
Mobility-Defined Networks™, Aruba Mobility Management System®, People
Move Networks Must Follow®, Mobile Edge Architecture®, RFProtect®, Green
Island®, ETips®, ClientMatchTM, Virtual
Intranet AccessTM, ClearPass Access Management
SystemsTM, Aruba InstantTM,
ArubaOSTM, xSecTM,
ServiceEdgeTM, Aruba ClearPass Access
Management SystemTM, AirmeshTM,
AirWaveTM, Aruba CentralTM,
and “ARUBA@WORKTM. All rights reserved. All
other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Copyright Business Wire 2014