From Consumerization to the Cloud – the Accelerating Rate of IT Change
30 November 2009
Back in 2003, when we began our research into what we soon labeled The Consumerization of Information Technology, most of our Enterprise IT client base was understandably skeptical. After all, large companies had always been the leaders in the use of advanced IT, and many emerging consumer technologies still had a wide range of what were easily seen as prohibitive shortcomings.
Nevertheless, we found the logic of consumerization to be irrefutable, and ever since our initial Position Paper in 2004, we have argued that it would be the most powerful disruptive force in Enterprise IT. In an environment where employees are expected to work from home and on the road, their IT equipment will inevitably be used for both organizational and personal needs. The result has been both profound and ironic. The very same devices that are the basis of our work and productivity – PCs and handhelds – are also powerful sources of distraction and entertainment. They are in addition items of fashion and desire on which many individuals will happily spend their own money. Business and consumerization will have to learn to co-exist.
Reconciling these two very different realms will increasingly require Enterprise IT to accept that consumerization is the senior partner. Large-volume consumer markets with their rising multi-media requirements are now the driving force for IT hardware innovation, design and production. Thus, the corporate PC and smart phone businesses should be seen as essentially niche markets (albeit substantial ones) with their own (sometimes retro) needs. This is the mindset that large firms will need to adopt if they are to fully leverage future industry advances.
By 2005, it was clear that our clients would eventually need to find a way to manage this transition. The main questions were when and how. Towards this end, the founder of our consumerization research, Doug Neal, has long led a working group of like-minded firms who want to get out ahead of this issue. Looking back, the progress has been remarkable. Firms increasingly recognize that one-size-fits-all IT device provisioning no longer makes sense, and they have begun to experiment with a wide range of consumerized possibilities. These have included a shift from fat client software to browser-based and thin client alternatives, various programmes of employee choice, and rising corporate interest in self-funding and self-support models. While there is still a very long way to go, it is no longer controversial to forecast that central IT will eventually play a much smaller role in employee device provisioning and support. This would represent real industry progress.
