BYOD and Big Data in 2014

The unprecedented pace of modern technological development is continuing to propel business growth in ways few executives could have foreseen years ago.

Before this decade began, most CEOs were in the dark about efficiencies The Cloud could bring to their businesses, Big Data wasn’t part of the office lexicon and what now seem tortoise-like mobile broadband speeds were considered lightning fast.

In the spirit of moving forward quickly, we asked three IT executives to reveal the primary technological opportunities they hope to exploit in 2014 — and the associated obstacles to overcome.

Risky BYOD

It seems the data-protection risks associated with workers using their own smartphones and mobile devices at work is at the forefront of IT teams’ minds.

The positives of BYOD are clear, according to Alan Laing, a vice-president at Acronis. They include increased mobility, higher job satisfaction and reductions in hardware, software and service costs. Meanwhile, employees get to choose their mobile devices and operating systems.

But Alan warns: “Personal devices are giving some IT departments cause for panic. They are counting off the ways this BYOD trend complicates data protection.”

Ponemon’s 2013 State of the Endpoint report revealed mobile devices are one of the biggest — and fastest-growing — areas of IT security risk. In 2010, only 9 percent of respondents said mobile devices were a rising threat, compared with 73% in 2013.

Alan explains: “It is becoming impossible to control what each employee is connecting and transferring to the network, such as personal pictures and music — or whether they are taking away confidential documents.

“Mixing corporate and personal files becomes extremely complex to manage. Meanwhile, all devices are different and run on different operating systems, adding more management time.”

Big Data days

Another primary concern of IT executives in 2014 will be how to unlock the value of Big Data, according to Adrian Simpson, chief innovation officer at SAP.

Big Data is a term that describes a collection of large data sets that can yield potentially invaluable patterns and trends for businesses when processed by powerful modern-day analytics tools.

Adrian said: “People at the boardroom level are aware of the benefits that Big Data can bring in terms of gaining insight and therefore an advantage over the competition.

“Executives will have to consider how to analyse the existing silos of data, deliver a federated single view of that information and then be able to present it in context, to the right users, on their device of choice.”