As enterprises rely more and more heavily on mobile devices, researchers at Vanson Bourne have observed a “sizeable drag” on IT resources. Businesses are driven to rethink their approach by demands for greater security, productivity and employee satisfaction, according to research commissioned by technology expense and asset management company Tangoe.

Vanson Bourne surveyed 300 IT decision makers at enterprises with annual revenue from $500 million to more than $50 billion.

The Mobile Enterprise

The four top challenges cited by respondents were sourcing new mobile assets (73%), managing mobile inventory (70%), finding mobile help desk support (61%) and collecting, recycling and wiping assets (53%).

Mobile devices now consume more than one-third of IT team productivity and cost. Nearly two third of companies (65%) are completely reliant on mobile devices and the average company surveyed has 68,000 mobile devices in use. Churn among IT staff members is 17%.

The survey show how central mobility has become. More than 30% of annual revenue would be lost without mobile assets and $4 million would be lost per hour of downtime across mobile assets. The survey found that 65% of devices accessing company information are personally owned. The use of personal devices – familiarly called the ‘bring your own device (BYOD)” approach – raises security and data breach concerns for 53% and 50% of respondents, respectively.

“For most businesses, managing mobile devices is significantly more complicated than traditional PCs and laptops as there are a wide range of apps, operating systems, device types, and other factors that are unique to mobile phones and tablets,” said Zeus Kerravala, founder and principal analyst for ZK Research in a press release about the mobile enterprise research.