Industry Spotlight: Information Technology
Consumerization of IT
One of the biggest trends in information technology is actually nothing new. It is just that it is happening on a grander scale than before. What does consumerization of IT mean? Wikipedia defines it as “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.” What this means is that employees are changing the way they work, and businesses would be wise to keep up.
This trend poses a variety of benefits and challenges to businesses, and often the IT departments in companies are caught in the middle, trying to keep a balance. Before this trend, people did their work at work, and when they left and went home, they shut off their computer and no security threat was presented. However, now computers are everywhere. People can work from their iPad while riding the train to work, send emails over their smartphone on vacation, and use their laptop at the work and home networks. This can pose a serious IT security nightmare.
In some ways, employees are driving technology decisions because they possess electronic devices that continuously add advanced capabilities. For example, an IT department can require that their employees have virus scanning software on home computers when accessing corporate networks but what would an IT department do when an individual starts accessing their email from his or her Internet enabled TV? Companies may not be thinking about issues like that. This is where the consumer is driving the decision/policy.
Benefits of Consumerization
The benefits often outweigh the challenges however. Imagine, now companies can squeeze more productivity out of a leaner workforce than ever before. The work day rarely ends at 5 o’clock anymore. Also, allowing employees to choose the technology that meets their needs creates trust. Businesses can use that trust to create an environment where employees are invested in the success of the company, and by providing the innovative technologies that employee’s desire, businesses might reap the rewards of increased productivity and improved efficiency, allowing them to stay competitive.
Sometimes, employees using their own products or outside resources to get their jobs done can inform a company that they need to make an important technology update. For instance, an employee may find that the company’s exchange program is way too slow, or doesn’t allow for a large enough attachment size for him or her to send important docs. Often employees will use their own email or a free service, like YouSendIt, that allows them the capability they need. Being alert of these kinds of restrictions your technology is imposing and taking actions to correct it can help everyone do their jobs better.
Planning a good strategy
If your company is a financial or health-care firm with secure patient records, the strategy is likely going to be simple. You don’t allow access to outside email accounts, social networking accounts, or any other SAAS products. However, for the rest of the business world, a good strategy is not just important, it is required.
Finding out what technology employees are using is step one. Most likely, they are using either a smartphone or a tablet, or a combination of both. According to market research firm IHS iSuppli, shipments of tablets will rise to 262.1 million units in 2015, up from 17.4 million in 2010. Smartphone shipments are projected to increase to more than 1 billion units in 2015, up from 294.3 million in 2010, according to the firm.
Figuring out how to secure these kinds of devices is difficult, given that the reason they are so popular (portability) also makes them vulnerable to theft. What if your employee has proprietary information downloaded onto that tablet? In situations like this, CIO’s sometimes have to consider what kind of access to give employees for particular docs. Read-only access to certain documents can help control to a point what an employee can download to their mobile device. The kicker is: you can’t fully control what people download onto the network from outside sources. Even if you control the corporate exchange account to disallow downloading PDF’s onto mobile devices, employees will workaround that restriction using their Gmail accounts.
Educating employees on technology and what poses as a security problem in your company can help mitigate the use of technology that really is just unsuitable for your business. You can also educate employees on how to best use their personal devices and integrate them effectively and safely into the infrastructure.
That old IT saying holds true in this situation: most employees know just enough about their personal technology devices to be dangerous. A good IT strategy can help to prevent security disasters, but nothing is permanent as consumer technology is always changing. No company has probably solved this problem perfectly, and there may never be a perfect solution. A company’s best bet is to have a strategy in place and be prepared that nothing is ever 100% secure in today’s business environment.
