London, United Kingdom - 10 Aug 2017

ABI Research forecasts enterprise wearable device revenue, such as smartwatches, smart glasses, and wearable scanners, will top US$60 billion in 2022, increasing from just US$10.6 billion this year, a CAGR of over 41%. Companies are always looking for innovative ways to improve productivity, and wearables are well placed to do so. Providing workers hands-free access to information and communication is helping to drive growth in the market. However, this rise in popularity of wearables will bring increased data security concerns and enterprise mobility management (EMM) solutions must be put in place when deploying wearables across a company to ensure that all data is kept secure.

“Enterprise wearables have access to large amounts of company and customer data, that employees need to access when they’re away from the office,” says Stephanie Lawrence, Research Analyst at ABI Research. “EMM solutions provide several layers of security to the devices, applications, and data to ensure that if the device is lost, stolen, or hacked, sensitive company and customer information is not put at risk.”

EMM is the overall term for mobile management software solutions that allow companies to securely manage employees’ mobile devices, including wearables. A number of considerations must be made when investigating an EMM solution for wearable devices, as they often lack their own authentication protocols, so a strong security layer is vital. Employees need to be re-educated on security risks that they may not be aware to look out for – for example, while they may understand what a suspicious email or link looks like on a PC or smartphone, this knowledge does not necessarily translate to wearables. If a company already has an EMM platform for employees’ smartphones, it must also ensure that the platform can support potentially twice as many devices when wearables are deployed.

Companies such as 42Gears, Augmate, Hipaax, SOTI, and VMware offer secure EMM platforms to enterprises looking to deploy wearable devices. These platforms help to keep all wearables-accessed data secure using authentication protocols, encryption, and remote control of the devices (i.e., remote wiping of data and locking of the devices if lost or stolen).

“Implementing EMM solutions is vital for any company considering the use of wearable devices for any purpose,” concludes Lawrence. “Without a strong EMM in place, a company risks data being hacked or accessed via an unsecure, lost, or stolen device, which can have potentially catastrophic results for both the company and the consumer.”

These findings are from ABI Research’s Enterprise Mobility Management Services for Wearables report. This report is part of the company’s Enterprise Digitization & Workplace Automation research service, which includes research, data, and analyst insights.