Up to 55% of Corporate Data is Used for Non Business Purposes

The use of data is influencing human activity as more and more transactions are conducted via the mobile data networks. With many traditional services translated into Apps and on-line sites, data subscribers are shifting their research, ordering, purchasing, banking, communicating, sharing and other activities to the web. Enterprises are capitalizing on the data usage habits among their employees by offering them enterprise data packages, rolled out by MNOs who offer cheaper and custom bundled data packages for these susbcriber types. While the primary objective of enterprise data packages is to support work-related activities, such as checking the emails, sharing documents, updating colleagues and supervisors, accessing employee self-managed portals, executing work related transactions such as booking flights and making hotel reservations and conducting on-line research and learning, recent data shows that personal use still makes up a larger chunk of data used by employees who are on these Enterprise Packages. 

Wandera, the pioneer and leading provider of Mobile Data Optimization (MDO), released first of its kind report that focused exclusively on enterprise mobility cellular data and trends. The report is derived from the analysis of the data usage habits of enterprise smartphone and tablet users in North America,Europe and Asia. The report among others highlights that a minority of employees consumed the majority of data with the usage often skewed towards management departments and employee mobile habits were consistent whether domestic or roaming. The report also says that video and audio streaming is the most popular apps, followed by email and location based services (Maps), while roaming makes up to 16% of the overall average data usage in the enterprise segment.

The report demonstrates the trends that are all simultaneously driving the runaway growth in data usage, while creating an increasing cost and management headache for enterprise mobility teams.

• Both domestic and roaming data usage are significantly up (8% Quarter on Quarter, and 16% QoQ respectively), driven by the increased adoption of 4G, tablets and the video usage referenced below.

• iOS and Android users consume significantly more data than BlackBerry users. With access to a wider variety of data-rich applications and a better browsing experience, enterprise iOS users consumed 6X more data than corporate BlackBerry users in Q3, while Android users consumed 5.5X more.

• Video and audio streaming accounted for the single largest portion of cellular data used on all devices -- 23% of the total sample. This was closely followed by email (21%), and then geolocation services/maps (14%), browser traffic (12%) and social media (8%). App download traffic was particularly high in September due to the release of iOS7.

• Up to 55% of corporate data is used for non business purposes. The report also revealed that nearly the same amount of data was used by employees on weekends as on weekdays, further indicating that a significant portion corporate data spend is going towards employees' personal use.

• Source - Wandera (Nov 5, 2013)