63% of South African employees are allowed to use their own devices to access their company’s server or network.

This is according to research finding from networking technology firm Cisco.

The ‘bring your own device’ (BYOD) finding has come about after the company conducted 150 interviews online between late June and mid-July 2014.

Respondents to the Cisco survey are aged 19-35, employed full-time, have at least two years’ experience in their current job, are in an office environment at least 50% of their work day, manage people, are involved in decision-making, and have either college education or had been on a management training course paid for by their company.

The announcement of the research has come in light of the company also announcing a name change for its ‘Cisco Expo’ event. The event is now called ‘Cisco Connect’ and it is planned to take place 2-4 November 2014 in Sun City, South Africa, bringing together more than 1000 information technology (IT) business decision makers.

“Our research demonstrates that the biggest challenge South African organisations face today is adapting to the fast pace of change that the technology transitions that are enabling the internet of everything (IoE), such as increased mobility, increased use of video and cloud, are bringing,” says Alpheus Mangale, managing director for Cisco in South Africa.

Other highlights of the Cisco research include the following:

• One half of all employees (average 52%) bring at least one of their own devices to work.
• About 7 in 10 respondents agree that business-class video will save travel costs and smooth out any issues related to telecommuting.
• Majority felt that business-class video will foster and reinforce relationships with dispersed colleagues.
• Respondents foresee many benefits as a result of business-class video, especially with respect to conferences/speeches.
• Over three-quarters of South African respondents are familiar with Cloud Computing.
• Of these, the most are working in companies that adopted it (79%).
• Slightly over one-half agree that companies are in the ‘age of Cloud Computing’
• Those familiar with Cloud Computing feel it is very important to the future of their organizations as well as organizations in general.
• High perception the data stored in the Cloud is secure.