The very different workplace environments of developed or high-growth markets manifests in how employees approach the Bring Your Own Device trend. High growth market employees are much more likely to participate and favor BYOD.
BYOD has been affecting gadget usage within enterprise settings for some time. The trend has enabled companies to save money by allowing their employees to use their own devices at work instead of using enterprise-purchased ones. On a global scale, BYOD has a much different type of presence when mature markets are compared to high-growth, emerging ones. Countries like the US, France and Japan are considered more mature markets, and in these countries employees tend to separate their work and spare time much more often than those in the high-growth markets. In a survey on employee behavior toward mobile device usage at work, digital analyst firm Ovum delineates “the BYOD divide,” where these differing regions benefit differently from enterprise mobile usages.
Emerging markets don’t separate work and personal life as much
Brazil, India, Malaysia, UAE, Russia, Singapore and South Africa are considered high-growth markets (HGMs) by Ovum’s study. These regions are shown to have employees who have a “more flexible attitude to working hours, and are happy to use their own devices for work.” By this, the survey showed that 75 percent of employees in HGMs use their own devices at work, compared to 44 percent of mature market countries - specifically, Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, the UK and the US. This more tenuous distinction between work and personal time seems to derive from how employees approach their job. In mature markets, 54 percent believe that “constant connectivity enables them to do their job better,” while 79 percent of those in HGMs think this way.
Regardless of employee support, unmanaged BYOD activity is still common
The appeal for employees of a single device that is used for both personal and work tasks differs greatly for these two market categories. Over half (59 percent) of HGM employees prefer the single device approach, compared to only 38 percent of mature market employees. But even with employee support, there still remains structural development to ensure that BYOD is a sustainable workflow. Only 18 percent of employer IT departments know their employees bring their own devices, and 28 percent of IT departments “actively ignore” the practice - an unmanaged activity level of 46 percent. This can contribute to the security concerns that enterprises experience with this trend.