In 2001, we coined the phrase, the Consumerization of Information Technology, to describe the radical reorientation of the IT industry. The growth of the computer business had always been rooted in big companies and large government organizations. But today, it is the consumer market that is the center of IT innovation and growth.

Over the last decade, we have helped large IT organizations come to grips with these dramatic changes. But today, as IT permeates virtually every part of the marketplace, consumerization has become a major driver of business change as well. We believe that forward-thinking executives must stay abreast of how consumerization is affecting their firm and their industry along the ten dimensions below:

1. 1. Consumerization is greatly reducing traditional cost, geographic and technology barriers to experimentation and innovation, and thus is accelerating the rate of business change.
2. 2. Consumerization is changing the culture of the firm, which is becoming less top down and more about individual choice, empowerment and responsibility.
3. 3. Consumerization is changing the employee of the future, as companies need to recruit and retain people who are double-deep, i.e. skilled in both their particular jobs and the relevant IT.
4. 4. Consumerization is changing the work/life balance. As we increasingly need to work at home, it is only fair that we sometimes will want to play at work.
5. 5. Consumerization is making firms more customer-centric in that the expectations consumers have when using the Web are now the norms they expect when dealing with any firm.
6. 6. Consumerization is causing firms to become more transparent, as the ability to more widely share information internally inevitably makes firms more externally transparent as well.
7. 7. Consumerization is creating many new governance, risk and security challenges that can no longer be solely the responsibility of enterprise IT.
8. 8. Consumerization is challenging budgeting and procurement models. As employees acquire equipment and services directly, how can firms control how and how much they spend on IT?
9. 9. Consumerization is changing the legal and liability environment, as employee owned equipment and third- party services become critical to business operations.
10. 10. Consumerization is changing the relative technology adoption patterns between industries due to their widely different security and risk management profiles. This is having a significant impact on business leadership and competitive advantage.

We offer a variety of advisory and digital education services to help today’s executives leverage these increasingly complex and important technological developments. For more information, please contact, Kate Taylor at ktaylor4@csc.com.