UK businesses are the most enthusiastic about employees bringing their own devices to work, according to research commissioned by Citrix.
The results of its global survey showed worldwide awareness that employees were using their personal devices, such as phones, tablets or laptops, for work and 94 per cent of the 700 chief information officers (CIOs) interviewed said they planned on running official trial schemes of Bring Your Own' (BYO) device by the middle of 2013.
However, UK CIOs were looking to push this forward much faster, with 33 per cent claiming they would roll out a BYO pilot within the next 12 months.
There are still issues with internal support for the devices though. Whilst 76 per cent of employees used their laptops at work, 75 per cent used their smartphones and 62 per cent used their tablets, only 40 per cent of IT departments supported the laptops, 26 per cent the smartphones and just 15 per cent the tablets.
"UK businesses are clearly aware that BYO is happening in their organisation and are very switched on to the benefits it can deliver but there are still some steps to be taken to close the gap and ensure BYO is supported from an IT and financial perspective," said James Stevenson, area vice president for the UK, Ireland and South Africa at Citrix.
"The trend for employees wanting to use their own devices, especially tablets, is only going to grow over the next two years, so businesses that acknowledge now that this group is influencing future IT policy will be best positioned to reap the benefits."
The major concern of moving to BYO for business was security, with 86 per cent of those against the move in the UK citing it as a fear. This was followed by support costs at 46 per cent a higher percentage than the global average, according to Citrix.
Just 13 per cent of UK CIOs surveyed that said they weren't looking to move to BYO, so embracement of the trend is still the norm on British shores.
Citrix was keen to add in a question to promote its own desktop virtualisation offering and it fell on its feet with how to tackle the security issue. A healthy 23 per cent of UK CIOs said they planned to take on BYO security through desktop virtualisation and a significant 54 per cent said they had already adopted the technology.
"Being cautious about security is understandable, but this does not need to be an inhibitor to embracing and supporting BYO when technologies like desktop virtualisation provide a secure way of delivering a desktop to any employee, on any device, wherever they are," concluded Stevenson.
