Technology and IT systems are no doubt growing and spreading. But how often and easily are such systems being adopted?
Dell's Global Technology Adoption Index answers some of these questions. Dell conducted a survey of approximately 2,000 midsize public and private organizations across 11 regions worldwide in multiple industries to develop the GTAI. Surveys were conducted between July 15 and Sept. 2.
Here are 18 key findings on the adoption of data security, mobility and big data, according to the survey.
Security
- Concerns regarding security present the biggest barriers to adopting IT systems. Fifty-two percent of respondents said security was the biggest barrier for adopting cloud computing, 44 percent said it was the biggest barrier for expanding mobility technologies and 35 percent said it was the biggest barrier to leveraging big data.
- Similarly, few organizations report having information to help them prepare for a security breach. Just three in 10 respondents indicated having the right information to make risk-based decisions. One in four organizations has a plan in place for all types of security breaches.
- Twenty-eight percent of surveyed organizations said the C-suite was engaged with security initiatives.
- There appears to be a correlation between C-suite engagement in security and organizational confidence in security. Of organizations reporting to be "very confident" in their security, 84 percent of senior leaders are fully or somewhat engaged.
- The majority of security resources are spent on protecting against hackers (43 percent) and adhering to compliance regulations (37 percent).
- Less than half — 39 percent — of respondents said their workforce is fully aware of the organization's security rules.
- Eighteen percent of respondents said they use security as a competitive advantage.
Mobility
- What is the biggest benefit of mobility? According to 41 percent of respondents, efficiency is. Thirty-two percent said employee productivity was the biggest benefit.
- Organizations in developing countries reported higher adoption rates of formal brying-your-own-device policies: 37 percent in Asia Pacific and 34 per cent in Latin America and just 30 percent in North America. Dell suggests this is due to the prevalence of mobile use in these countries.
- Half of respondents said the risk of a data breach from lost devices and unprotected wireless networks was the biggest challenge to mobility adoption. Forty-four percent said fear of a data breach was the main barrier to expanding mobility.
- Next to security, respondents indicated cost (40 percent) and managing multiple platforms and devices (36 percent) as the biggest mobility risks.
- Expanding network bandwidth was identified as a key mobile priority by 28 percent of respondents, followed by developing tools to make employees more efficient (25 percent).
Big data
- Many organizations reported having big data to analyze (61 percent), but only 39 percent know how to extract value from big data and are currently pursuing it.
- Primary barriers to implementing big data initiatives are infrastructure costs and security, both indicated by 35 percent of respondents.
- Other barriers include analytics/operational costs (34 percent), lack of management support (22 percent) and lack of technical skills (21 percent).
- To address security concerns, 43 percent of organizations leverage private clouds to store big data, while just 11 percent leverage a public cloud.
- Organizations only feel like they are receiving half of the potential insights their big data could offer them.
- Healthcare organizations, along with telecom and financial organizations, report being more likely to take advantage of their big data (56 percent).
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