'Manage your staff's mobiles or write a blank cheque'

As teleworking and staff mobility finally get a foothold in business, it looks like businesses are being slow to take advantage of the benefits – and even slower to get their employees a strategy to work with.

According to new research from O2, 12 per cent of IT budgets will be going on mobile technology this year but 63 per cent of businesses have no strategy in place to govern wireless usage. A Netonomy-sponsored report from the LSE out this week into enterprise mobile strategy revealed that such a 'head-in-the-sand' attitude could be doing business more harm than good.

LSE's report says that companies should treat their wireless assets the same as their other tech: "The wireless architecture will need to be managed in the same way as the IT architecture; that is with appropriate policies, tools and resources," it says. "Without wireless asset management... in place, mobilising the workforce could be tantamount to many corporates simply issuing a blank cheque."

With analyst firm Gartner predicting that by 2008, three-quarters of the global workforce will be mobile, why aren't bosses taking the same initiative to manage their mobile assets?

The report's author, Carsten Sorensen, said that the personal nature of mobile devices can disguise the need for a strategy. "Because it’s a personal technology, people tend to manage it themselves – sometimes it's more practical than official systems. If there are just a few people who invoice a company for their mobile phone bills, it's not a big deal," he said.

Apart from the mounting cost of an unmanaged mobile workforce, there are a range of security issues. O2's figures show that 18 per cent of IT managers have no idea what personal devices are in use in the business and, as mobile data services take off for enterprise, firms are left with the need to balance accessibility for staff while maintaining control over who can access what data and with what security measures.

As well as helping companies to monitor the costs of mobile usage, companies can also benefit from an insight into their behaviour as well as the reassurance they are complying with corporate governance.

But for staff that have been used to managing their own mobiles, a new strategy from bosses might not go down too well. Sorensen recommends companies experiment with the right strategy: "It's important to start simple and try to manage the costs. For the individual user, there needs to be a strategy where they can be empowered to manage themselves... In the corporate space you can't second guess what role needs what device and what access.

"We've seen in the City people being given whatever technology they deem necessary, but not every company can do that," he said.