The results of a European online survey of IT professionals indicate that over the next 12 months there will be an influx of wearable devices in the workplace, connecting to the corporate IT infrastructure.
Little thought, however, has been given to how this will impact network performance or security, with only 13% of organisations having a policy managing the impact of wearables.
The Ipswitch survey found that the UK was behind France and Germany in adopting wearbales, with 34% of French and 33% of German businesses expecting to introduce company owned wearable technology into the workplace during 2015.
This is in contrast to just 25% of UK businesses who plan to do the same.
In addition to corporate adoption of wearables, the survey also indicated an expected influx in employee owned wearable devices entering businesses. 36% of all organisations surveyed expect employee owned wearables to enter the workplace in 2015.
German businesses are expecting the highest volume of employee owned devices, with 41% of respondents saying they expect an influx of these devices. France (36%) and the UK (33%) were a little more conservative in their expectations.
Alessandro Porro, Vice President of International Sales at Ipswitch, commented, "IT infrastructure is already overloaded more than ever before and our survey indicates that this is about to get more complex in 2015 with the growing adoption of wearable technology."
"However, whilst it looks like many businesses plan to take full advantage of the benefits wearable technology has to offer, these productivity benefits will also be accompanied by some big challenges for IT infrastructure."
"If the right policies, technologies and monitoring tools are not put in place, businesses face poor network performance, low availability and the threat of security and compliance issues."
Porro advises businesses to review and update both policies and network infrastructure to prepare for the impact of wearables.
