Guess what? IT isn’t afraid of consumerization after all

CIOs are circling the wagons as users rampage for their iPhones, iPads, Macs, and other nontraditional computing devices. Those CIOs and their IT staffs are fretting over security breaches, information loss, and their own power base, and they’re blocking users at every turn to preserve the status quo.

That’s the message you get from many vendors, consultants, and publications. But it’s wrong. Most CIOs aren’t fearful or resisting consumerization — they’re embracing it, figuring out how to make heterogeneous, user-oriented computing work in their businesses.

So says the consultancy Avanade, a creation of Microsoft and Accenture, based on its survey released today of 605 senior IT and business executives throughout the world conducted in late October 2011. And so says IDG Enterprise (InfoWorld’s parent organzation), based on an online survey released yesterday of more than 1,900 respondents. The surveys make it clear that consumerization is not something that’s just now transpiring — it’s already happened.

The Avanade and IDG Enterprise surveys are very heartening, especially in the face of all the self-interested fearmongering over consumerization and BYOD by the security vendors. It should also serve as a wake-up call to those IT organizations and businesses that are in fact resisting consumerization, showing them their fears are misguided, their resistance is unconstructive, and they don’t lose by embracing the consumerization phenomenon. Although the Avanade survey shows that more business execs than IT execs think supporting consumerization is manageable with existing resources, majorities of both groups say consumerization is not an undue burden to handle.

Here are the key findings from the Avanade survey:

• 60 percent of companies are now adapting their IT infrastructure to accommodate employees’ personal devices, rather than to restrict employee use of personal devices. So much for the fear reaction.
• 73 percent of C-level executives reported that the growing use of employee-owned technology is a top priority in their organization, and 88 percent said employees are already using personal technology in the business. So much for the notion that IT and business leaders have their heads in the sand about the consumerization phenomenon.
• 91 percent of C-level execs and 75 percent of IT leaders said their IT department today has the staff and resources needed to manage the use of consumer technologies. Furthermore, 62 percent of IT execs and 84 percent of C-level execs said it is a relatively simple matter to integrate the employee-owned devices, applications, and online services with the enterprise IT systems.
• Executives aren’t blind to the risks of the consumerization phenomenon: 66 percent see security as the main risk, whereas 37 percent see unmanaged data as the top risk. More than half (55 percent) of companies said they have experienced at least one security breach due to the use of a personal technology in the business (most commonly, USB thumb drives and lost laptops or other devices, Avanade has found when talking to clients), and 81 percent said they need to strengthen their IT infrastructure to reduce these risks. But that stated concern isn’t matched by their actions, which I think is a better measure of the real risk potential they see or the skill gap they think they actually have: Only 35 percent will train IT staff responsible for critical infrastructure on how to address these risks, and only 38 percent will train business employees.

The IDG Enterprise survey’s key points echo that of Avanade’s findings:

• 72 percent of participants have embraced the use of consumerization of IT by allowing employees to use their own device to perform work tasks either away from work or at work (48 percent of the participants who have embraced consumerization), expanding the list of devices provided to employees to include more consumer devices (42 percent), and/or providing an allowance for employees to buy personal devices to use at work (11 percent).
• Mobile devices rank highest in the types of personal devices organizations will support, with smartphones at 79 percent and tablets at 68 percent. The top personal devices supported by IT departments are BlackBerrys (68 percent), iPhones (61 percent), and iPads (54 percent).

The Avanade survey also debunks several commonly cited “facts” about the use of personal devices and the pressure to support consumerization strategies such as BYOD:

• Despite what you may read elsewhere, it is not the desire to atract and retain young workers that is driving the commitment to consumerization: Only 32 percent of executives reported they have changed company policies to make their workplace more appealing to younger employees. Only 20 percent of executives bought in to the idea that allowing personal computing technologies in the workplace will benefit recruitment and retention efforts. The reason executives like consumerization is because it lets them get more out of workers: 58 percent said the greatest result was the fact that their employees are able to work from anywhere, while 42 percent said it meant employees would work more outside traditional business hours.
• Another myth that isn’t true is the notion that personal devices — especially tablets and smartphones — are only useful for communications and content consumption. Although checking email and social networking sites are still the main uses for personal devices — at 85 and 46 percent, respectively — the survey showed that 65 percent of execs believe it’s acceptable for employees to use such devices to create business content. And execs increasingly see such personal devices as legitimate platforms for accessing core mission-critical enterprise applications. As examples, 48 percent of execs cited customer relationship management (CRM), 44 percent cited time and expense tracking, and 36 percent cited enterprise resource planning (ERP) as applications already in use on personal devices.
• Companies aren’t simply replacing one official, standard mobile platform (RIM’s BlackBerry) for another (Apple’s iOS). Although Apple leads the pack in terms of user selection, many companies are supporting their employees’ right to choose. Nearly 40 percent of respondents said they let employees bring any smartphone they want into the workplace, and nearly 30 percent let employees bring any tablet they want.

Those in IT who try to limit consumerization support to toy-loving senior executives they can’t say no to — the strategy employed for the original IBM ThinkPad, original BlackBerry, and other such pricey excutive out-of-band “toys” — will find that the consumerization phenomenon is no longer limited to executives. It’s a broad-based trend, says Ryan McCune, a senior director on Avanade’s incubation team. “The difference today is that everybody could be out of band, not just top execs. The technology is much more affordable and accessible.”

The Avanade results especially reflect what I hear from an unscientific sampling of CIOs and other business leaders. I had thought my sample might be biased, as I’m known as an adovate for consumerization and the events I attend and the execs who reach out to me are likely to be of similar minds. I’ve thought of those execs as conservatively progressive (or progressively conservative, if you prefer) because their approach is to say, “Let’s see how we can make this work. Give me some time, and in return I’ll do my best to satisfy your needs while safeguarding the company.” They’re not naysayers nor ostriches.

Now it turns out that these conservative progressives are hardly the exception — and that’s a positive finding about companies and IT today.

This article, “Guess what? IT isn’t afraid of consumerization after all,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Galen Gruman’s Smart User blog at InfoWorld.com. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.