- Consumerization
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Consumerization is a stable neologism that describes the trend for new information technology to emerge first in the consumer market and then spread into business organizations, resulting in the convergence of the IT and consumer electronics industries, and a shift in IT innovation from large businesses to the home. For example, many people now find that their home based IT equipment and services are both more capable and less expensive than what is provided in their workplace. The term, consumerization, was first popularized by Douglas Neal and John Taylor of CSC's Leading Edge Forum in 2001 and is one of the key drivers of the Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 movements.
Contents
Understanding the consumerization process.
As shown in the figure (first drawn in 2002), consumerization can emerge in several different ways—from the consumerization of traditional "private" business infrastructure, and from the activities of early consumer market adopters. Both processes emerged as an important phenomenon in the late 1970s and mid-80s as the microprocessor flourished, and PCs, calculators, VCRs, facsimile machines, and other devices were all consumerized. Each of these early examples began as relatively expensive private infrastructures that were primarily used by large organizations. By contrast, CD-ROMs, DVDs, video games, and instant messaging all had their roots in consumer markets. Still other technologies – email, PDAs and cell phones – have both consumer and business market origins. In all three of these cases, pervasive societal usage eventually created vast economies of scale that businesses alone could never have achieved, supported by interoperable standards, ever-improving quality, and self-service operation. Business buyers are often surprised to learn that in many consumerized markets they are viewed by the vendors as just a small niche market.
Figure 1 – The process of Consumerization pulls from both private infrastructure and early consumer adopters.
Consumerization presents significant new business challenges and opportunities. Historically, businesses – and particularly large enterprises – have viewed information technologies as private infrastructure, to be owned and used by the business, not individuals. Even today, many businesses are more comfortable with traditional sourcing through private infrastructure markets. But consumerization establishes new norms that are just as relevant to business as to anyone else. For example, some worry that consumer services are unreliable. In fact, many are more reliable than their business counterparts. Yahoo, for example, supports more than 250 million email accounts – a scale that dwarfs even the largest enterprises. The company would be out of business if its services were unreliable, and it is a recognized leader in dealing with spam. Over time, it has become clear that the needs of consumers for reliability, security, cost effectiveness, interoperability and self-service are similar to the needs that most enterprises have.
Consumerization not only enables vasts economies of scale but it also shapes the technology, as consumers become the primary market and as many services are supported by advertising. This can create an additional psychological barrier for businesses, which often struggle with the idea that the same device employees use for work is also the one that they use for entertainment, and therefore the traditional boundaries between work and play must blur. In many ways, consumerization is the process by which the IT industry is being transformed from its roots as a business tool into primarily a social medium. It's consequences are expected to grow sharply in the future.
Consumerization Facts
An increasing number of organizations take a strategic approach to Consumerization by providing IT support for personal devices and by deploying new IT tools to secure and manage them. This online survey was conducted in June 2011 in the U.S., Germany and Japan among IT personnel responsible for endpoint operational management and/or messaging and collaboration operations. Respondents needed to be part of an organization with at least 500 employees worldwide. A total of 600 surveys were collected equally distributed across countries and industry verticals.
Consumerization has reached the tipping point
Consumerization Report 2011 - Chart 1Data shows that the majority of companies surveyed already allow employees to use their personal devices for work-related activities. On an aggregate, 56% of the respondents say yes to Consumerization as end-users favor personal devices because easier to use, more convenient and allow them to mix personal and work. While the trend is clearly affecting organizations worldwide, not all regions have adapted at the same pace: the U.S. already lead this innovation with 75% of yes, the more conservative Japan is on the raise with 36% and Germany somewhere in between with 59%. From an industry vertical perspective, Education (80%), Health Care (69%) and Business Services (67%) are the most consumerized industries while Manufacturing (48%), Government (39%) and Utilities (36%) are slower at embracing consumer technology. Company size doesn’t seem to be a discriminating factor although mid-large organizations show higher adoption rates, up to 65% for companies with 1,500 employees.
A strategic approach to Consumerization starts with providing IT support to personal devices
Consumerization Report 2011 - Chart 231% of the mobile devices connecting to the corporate network are owned by the employees in organizations that open up to consumerization: 66% are laptops, 25% smartphones and 9% are tablets. Considering that consumer smartphones and tablets are likely to run non-standard operating systems – such as Android and Apple iOS – Taking a strategic approach to consumerization starts with providing IT support to these employees for their personal devices when used for work related activities. The majority of the organizations (59%) already provide full or limited support: within the IT department, Security Teams (37%) are the most likely to provide this kind of service, Help Desk (24%) and Endpoint Management (23%) are quite common while some organizations also have dedicated Mobility Teams (14%.
New IT tools reduce security risks and management costs
Consumerization Report 2011 - Chart 3Security (64%) and data loss (59%) remain top concerns for most companies allowing employees to bring their personal devices in the workplace. Compliance and legal implications are greater concern in the U.S. and Japan than in Germany. To reduce security risks and to lower management costs, 79% of respondents require employees to install mobile security solutions on their personal mobile devices. 69% of respondents agreed that mobile device security is a key component in protecting their IT environments from employee-owned mobile devices while 71% of respondents consider a combination of mobile security and mobile device management to be the most effective.
References
- David Moschella, Douglas Neal, Piet Opperman, and John Taylor “The ‘Consumerization’ of Information Technology” Leading Edge Forum "The ‘consumerization’ of information technology is a powerful trend that promises many significant long-term business consequences, including radically lower costs, greatly improved functionality, and successive generations of users who are ever more technology-savvy.” June 2004.
- Gartner Analysts “Gartner Says Consumerization Will Be Most Significant Trend Affecting IT During Next 10 Years” Gartner “The growing practice of introducing new technologies into consumer markets prior to industrial markets will be the most significant trend affecting information technology (IT) during the next 10 years”, October 2005.
- An increasing number of organizations take a strategic approach to Consumerization by providing IT support for personal devices and by deploying new IT tools to secure and manage them. Consumerization Report 2011
External links
Categories:- Web 2.0 neologisms
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