Increased requests of your help desk will be an ongoing cost, says Getronic's Pironti. Users will request more password resets, and IT will need to work harder to access encrypted data if the data or password gets corrupted. Aramark's Kaufman agrees: "There's more of a burden for my staff."

CIOs can work to manage the costs of encryption deployments. At Aramark, Kaufman encrypted all laptops belonging to what he considered the highest-risk departments — HR, payroll and health-care services — but he's encrypting other users' laptops only when they are replaced or require other IT services.

"We want to have maximum security and minimum disruption," he says, so a risk-based trade-off is typically required. For these CIOs, encrypting sensitive data that can go missing in the field just constitutes good policy. Encryption becomes another cost of doing business, says Kaufman: "Given the value of our data and the effect [of a breach] on our reputation, how could we not do it?"