2007 CIO Magazine Consumer Technology Survey
Nearly all IT execs say that some percent of employees are using the Internet and other consumer apps at work. What are they doing about it?
CIO — The 2007 CIO Magazine Consumer Technology Survey was conducted with the objective of gaining insight into the views of CIOs and IT executives on consumer technology in the workplace. An e-mail invitation containing a link to the survey was sent to a random selection of CIO magazine subscribers on March 13, 2007. The survey closed on March 16, 2007, with 368 respondents. The margin of error on a sample size of 368 is +/- 5.1%. Percents may not sum to 100 due to rounding.
Respondent Profile
Half (50%) of respondents are the top IT executive at their company or business unit/location. Commonly reported titles include CIO, CTO, VP, Senior VP or EVP IS/IT (32%), director level or higher line of business technology executive (16%) and corporate business management (11%).
Respondents work across a variety of industries including finance/banking/accounting (10%), education/nonprofit (10%), healthcare/medical services/pharmaceutical/biotech (10%), government (9%) and non-computer related manufacturing (9%).
Forty percent of respondents are employed in companies with $1 billion or more in total revenues, 24 percent in companies with $100 million to $999.9 million in revenues and 26 percent in companies with less than $100 million in annual revenues. Eleven percent responded not applicable or gave no answer. Thirty-eight percent of respondents work in companies with 5,000 or more employees, 21 percent in companies with 1,000 to 4,999 employees and 40 percent in companies with 1,000 employees or less.
Usage & Support of Consumer Technology at Work
The chart below outlines activities in use at respondents' organizations as well as the percent of respondents reporting that their organizations support those activities. Only 1 percent of respondents say that their organizations do not support any of the activities listed below.
Nearly all (99%) respondents say that some percent of employees are using the Internet for work-related research and that their organization supports that activity. Employees are using social networking sites at two thirds (66%) of respondents' organizations but only 20 percent of those organizations are supporting it.
| Activities | Percent Using | Percent Supporting |
| Use of Internet for work-related research | 99% | 99% |
| Download programs onto their computers | 85% | 44% |
| Use instant messaging | 77% | 58% |
| Use social networking sites | 66% | 20% |
| File sharing outside company network | 65% | 29% |
Organizational Approach to Unsupported Technology Over half (53%) of respondents say their organization allows end users to find and use their own software applications with IT approval, 39 percent do not allow this activity and 8 percent say they allow end users to find and use their own applications without any restrictions.
When it comes to managing employees using unsupported technology, 42 percent of respondents say their organization monitors the activity for risk, while 30 percent study the business case for mainstreaming the technology. Twenty-eight percent of respondents say their organization shuts down unsupported technology down as soon as it is detected.
