As they muscle their way into business environment, smartphones and tablets have begun to adversely impact enterprises.

The average annual cost of mobile incidents for Indian enterprises, including data loss, damage to the brand, productivity loss, and loss of customer trust, is pegged at Rs 42.32 lakh per organisation annually.

The figure may look small, but a survey conducted by security solutions company Symantec Corp. hints at shape of things to come.

Announcing India results of its 2012 State of Mobility Survey, Mr Shantanu Ghosh, Vice-President and Managing Director (India Product Operations) of Symantec, said that threat to mobile devices would only grow in days to come. “There is a sharp increase in usage of mobile applications across organisations. At least half of Indian enterprises are discussing deploying custom mobile applications and one-third currently implementing or have already implemented custom mobile applications,” he said.

The survey, conducted by Applied Research from August-November 2011, covered 6,275 organisations in 43 countries, including 250 in India.

“The question is no longer about allowing mobile devices in the workplace, but rather how to manage and secure devices and critical information effectively and mitigate risks in a connected world,” he said.

“Mobile adoption is not without risks, and IT organisations recognise this challenge. Concerns are wide-ranging, from lost and stolen devices, data leakage, unauthorised access to corporate resources and the spread of malware infections from mobile devices to the company network,” he said.

Symantec asked enterprises to explore how they could take advantage of mobility and develop a phased approach to build an ecosystem.

> kurmanath@thehindu.co.in

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