Corporate IT consumerization, also called BYOT (Bring Your Own Technology), is the policy where employees work with their own equipment and applications within companies – and it is one of the biggest challenges, and opportunities, to be faced by organizations in the next five years.
The consumerization trend
A study entitled ‘Consumerization for Enterprise IT’, conducted by the Accenture Institute for High Performance, surveyed around 4,000 professionals from 16 countries across five continents, in addition to 300 IT and business executives. The study found that, despite user concerns regarding data security and IT protocols, 23% of respondents regularly use their personal equipment and applications for work-related activities. They also claim that these technologies reinforce innovation, productivity, and job satisfaction.
The major concern that IT consumerization brings to organizations is how to deal with the challenges and opportunities it offers. While some take an authoritarian approach, simply prohibiting the use of external technologies, others simply ignore the subject.
According to Accenture, companies should adopt a managed adoption approach. This is made possible by applying at least one of the following tactics: expanding the scope of available equipment and applications (while updating and changing policies according to team needs); promoting technological choices; proactively advocating consumer technologies; and/or segmenting the use of consumer technologies by job titles or functions within the company.
Implementing BYOT in companies
Although the title of this post is “the trend of the moment,” several IT magazines state that consumerization is here to stay and that major companies such as Microsoft, Google and Apple are all working along these lines.
In another survey conducted by the consulting firm Vanson Bourne, 94% of surveyed companies state they plan to implement policies encouraging this practice, highlighting the importance this movement is gaining in the global market. And finally, the main characteristic of the consumerization trend is human desire; people want to work the way they live, using the internet to facilitate relationships and communication.
