Features
Surf the Change or Be Swept Away: Consumerization, Mobility, and the Cloud
by Doug Neal
A constant in technology is change. In fact, we expect IT to transform – sometimes quickly, sometimes over years. However, in 2000, when we began a study tour on 3G mobile devices, little did we know we were starting a journey that would drive our research for the next decade.
At the time, we knew three important things about the consumerization of information technology. We found that one size no longer fits all, that employees like to be treated like adults, and that the enterprise is a niche player in the consumer space.
Since then we have learned, and written, a great deal more about consumerization, but only a few firms have capitalized on our findings – until now.
Over the past decade, the most notable changes are:
- Employees have changed. Many of them are now “double-deep” – they know both the business and the technology relevant to their jobs, and sometimes they know that technology better than IT specialists.
- Executives have changed. Many of them have purchased their own tablets or smartphones. Farsighted CIOs are configuring iPads for grateful boards of directors, much like they installed home broadband and WiFi for them years ago.
- Technology is easier to use. A decade ago it took a specialist to configure a router. Today, think about how many of your neighbors have successfully installed wireless Internet routers in their homes without even asking for help.
- Products and services are consumerized. Public infrastructure services, such as Voice over IP and Cloud Computing, are available to anyone, and you can pay “by the drink” and at scale. The original PC cost $5,000 for two floppies and a basic printer. Today, you can get started with Cloud for around $25.
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At the same time we have new disruptors, including social media, mobility, big data, and the need to drive innovation by collaborating with “weak ties” outside the firewall, anywhere around the globe.
Surf the change
The consumerization we first saw in our 2000 study tour has been building into a wave of change that IT organizations need to surf – or risk being swept away. Besides showing clear signs of the continued impact of consumerization, our 2010 study tour also highlighted five key areas of change:
- Cloud Computing and virtualization increases computing agility at lower costs
- New services and orchestration tools that make Cloud feasible for everyday use
- Social business tools enabling collaboration in the enterprise
- The slow but inexorable emergence of “identity” as an enabling force improving customer trust in all areas of business interaction
- A sharp new focus on mobility
The Cloud – both internal and external – has clearly started to make its presence felt in the boardroom. It is now common for CEOs to ask their CIOs, “So, what are we doing with the Cloud?”
Throughout the tour, identity also emerged as a topic that vendors and tour participants alike recognize as important, especially identity outside the boundaries of the enterprise. We heard two conflicting viewpoints: some said our email address will become our consumer identity by default; others counter that “Millennials” (the children of Baby Boomers) no longer use email.
No winning way forward on identity management has yet emerged, but despite some pessimism, in the course of our visits we learned how hard a problem identity is, how cooperation from multiple players is required, and saw evidence of many smart people applying themselves to the problem.
We also discovered that some of our fondest beliefs are just myths – and unfortunately they are costing us money. For example, much of what we “know” about security is not sustained by the facts, and we need to revisit where we spend our security budget. We were told a one-size-fits-all security policy is inappropriate and how access control lists are a flawed approach in a world outside the firewall. We were also told that 98 percent of data breaches occur on servers, not end-user devices, and heard how increased collaboration around security is helping us gain ground in the race against malware.
During the tour, we also found much of what we commonly “know” about data centers and their cost drivers is wrong. We need to rethink how we manage data centers in the light of the facts. For example, the use of filtered outside air is not just for cold climates. It makes sense any time the outside temperature is less than the exhaust temperature.
Action imperatives
At the end of the tour, delegates and LEF staff devised a set of specific recommendations for client companies to take home. It included:
1. Initiate pilots of Cloud-based collaboration tools. Don’t restrict your collaboration efforts to inside the firewall.
2. Understand the goals and implications of social network groups. A SWOT1 analysis of this feature might be useful before your competitors use it to grab your customers, or your customers use it to impact your brand.
3. Review your identity and access management strategy. It is no longer enough to think of it simply as a means of more efficiently managing internal identity and access management challenges. You need to consider the needs of your customers, and how you will manage their identity expectations and entitlements.
4. Focus on the emerging orchestration tools if you plan to manage your own Cloud infrastructure, rather than move up the “as a Service” stack.
5. Architect now for a flexible hybrid world if you plan a move to Cloud. Avoid lock-in by architecting for connection to multiple service providers.
6. Work out how you can securely put “your data” on “their devices.” In the fast-consumerizing mobile world, if you don’t, you can be sure they will put your data on their devices, secure or not.
Of all the lessons we drew from the study tour, perhaps the most significant was that every company we spoke with is extending its products to take advantage of new mobile devices. Advances in the iPhone, Android, and particularly the iPad, have opened a crack in the door to a new post-PC world.
But if our experience of previous tectonic shifts in IT is an accurate indicator of what to expect, then being successful in this new era will involve a long period of careful planning and hard work, coupled with a few tremors that can catch the unwary off guard. The greatest benefit will come to those businesses with the foresight to plan early so they can take advantage of the new technologies and concepts immediately as they become available.
Doug Neal is a research fellow with CSC’s Leading Edge Forum Executive Programme.
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