Although well over half of organisations – 67 per cent – surveyed by Snow Software at its annual user forum said they use mobile apps for businesses purposes, 80 per cent of software policies do not take these into account.

The survey highlighted the need for enterprise mobility management and software asset management policies to address the challenge of acquiring, distributing and tracking mobile apps in the workplace.

“Organisations that don’t consider apps as part of their wider software policies may miss out on cost savings and are likely to incur unbudgeted indirect usage charges,” said Alan Giles, mobility business unit manager at Snow Software, which develops software asset management products.

He stressed that businesses need to be able to provide their mobile users with access to “pre-approved, managed apps” to avoid compliance issues.

This becomes more important when considering the survey found that 97 per cent of organisations provide their employees with smartphones or tablets for business use, plus 57 per cent of respondents saying they personally use apps for at least an hour of the working day.

What’s more, Gartner predicts that 40 per cent of contact with the IT service desk will be related to smartphones and tablets by 2018. 

“Organisations are consuming software on many different devices and users are no longer reliant on desktop IT and the accompanying business software. IT needs to be able to manage the provisioning, licensing and consumption of software on any platform for any user, wherever they may be” Giles explained.