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What is "the consumerization trend" and why is it a problem?
I was speaking today with a journalist who reports on the technology industry. She said she has been hearing a lot from CIOs about problems with "the consumerization trend". Anyone care to expand upon what she was referring to?
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4 Answers
Hi Lisa, I actually wrote a recent blog post on the topic. Here are the first few paragraphs:
A persistent and inescapable phenomenon is beginning to have an impact on IT organizations everywhere. Whether IT likes it or not, users are bringing their “personal” technology to work. Workers have become increasingly dependent on “consumer technology” such as smartphones and social media and they are refusing to leave these devices at home. They have found countless ways to make themselves more productive and IT organizations now find themselves subject to what many are calling the “consumerization of IT.”
It started with a few savvy users who knew how to get around IT restrictions and controls on “non-standard technology.” IT organizations quickly found it was futile to forbid these devices and many have shifted to supporting rapid deployment of these new technologies (some would argue as a face-saving response). Many are viewing this as a transformation of IT as users take the reins and diminish IT’s ability to dictate what technology is deployed for business use. A good example is provided by a recent International Data Corporation article titled: “IT Consumers Transform the Enterprise: Are You Ready”, IDC May 2011. Here is an excerpt:
“We are currently at the tipping point where IDC expects mainstream organizations to aggressively embrace the adoption of consumerized technologies for the enterprise. IDC believes that this will be the next “transformative moment” for CIOs. Only a few years ago, when cloud computing and virtualization were the new trends, CIOs were judged based on how proactively they approached those solutions and drove value to the businesses. IDC believes that the current adoption trend of consumer technologies by the enterprise is liable to transform IT and business to an even greater extent, and in the next several years, CIOs will be judged based on how proactive their stance was and how successful they were in driving these technologies into the enterprise.”
Many pundits agree with IDC’s conclusions. They view the consumerization of IT has a driving force fostering not only higher user expectations of IT, but as a shift in who is actually driving new technology. Their expectations are not likely to be met very quickly as only 1 in 5 IT organizations have been proactive in embracing this change and leveraging it for new opportunities.
Read the rest of my post here: http://bit.ly/oUQvHa
I think this is primarily a concern regarding security - sensitive enterprise information floating around on unsecured, unmanaged consumer-owned devices. The solution is a combination of policies, education and other consciousness-raising, and mobile device/mobile-policy/mobile-expense management systems.
Steven - a very nice blog post. I have many different thoughts in reaction to it, but here is just one, regarding user sophistication. It is true that because of the ubiquity of technology, users have far more experience than many technology professionals of the recent past.
On the other hand, and this is a challenge for business and educators, many (most?) users have no idea how the technology they use actually works. They are very fluent with their devices, and creative about what they do with them. But if you ask the average user "why" their mobile device behaves in a certain way, they don't know. And they may not care - most of the time they don't need to care.
However, this lack of depth understanding can be problematic for users and businesses when things go wrong - something breaks, a bug or virus pops up, or the user employs a feature with unexpected side effects.
This situation can lead to to Craig's concern with security. Or less threatening but equally problematic, the user finds themselves tangled up in a situation where productivity goes down the tube as they dig out of a technological problem. How you deal with this challenge will depend heavily on the context but I like the notion of consciousness-raising as a starting point in all cases. ("What you don't know can hurt you")
IT consumerization is not a new idea, but no one has ever given it a huge importance. As TrendMicro mobile device management points out, it is essential a good management of IT, especially in the workplace where hundreds of devices are gathered under a single roof.
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