By Cesare Garlati
Rather than resist it, organizations should embrace Consumerization to unlock its business potential. This requires a strategic approach, flexible policies and appropriate security and management tools.
The Consumerization of IT is the single most influential technology trend of this decade. Companies are already well aware of it, as they wrestle with the growing influx and influence of smartphones, tablets, Facebook, Twitter and on and on. This “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) movement is very reminiscent of the early days of PCs in the late 1970’s to early 1980’s, when workers bought and brought their own Apple II or IBM PC to work to handle spreadsheets (using Visicalc or Lotus 1-2-3 respectively) so they could get data processed immediately rather than wait in line for the IS department to process punchcards, tapes, or whatever else the I/O was. Ultimately, IS heads had to stop resisting and start accepting the PC wave, and you know the rest of that story.
While this new BYOD growth does bring risks, too many companies make the mistake of trying to resist the influx of consumer IT. So what are the solutions and best practices for a company to turn Consumerization into a competitive advantage?
One: Have a plan. Take a strategic approach to Consumerization and develop a cross-organizational plan. IT cannot do this in a vacuum and will have to engage executives, line of business owners (marketing, sales, HR, product development) as well as customers, partners, and internal early adopters. While planning to adopt new consumer technology, IT managers should survey their most innovative users to discover what devices and applications they like and what they find most useful in their work activities. In this way IT will pull from users’ experience rather than pushing IT views to their base.
Two: Say yes – but not to everything for everyone. Develop a set of policies that clearly define what devices and applications are considered corporate-standard (fully supported by IT) vs. tolerated (jointly supported with the user) vs. deprecated (full user liability). In addition, IT should profile the global workforce based on relevant attributes such as role, line of business and location. And then map technologies to user profiles and define SLAs for each intersection.
Three: Put the right infrastructure in place. Deploy appropriate IT tools specifically designed to secure and manage consumer technology in the enterprise. Be aware that while some solutions have already materialized along the lines of specific product segments – i.e. Mobile Device Management, no single vendor can provide one single solution covering all functional requirements across all platforms. As vendors enter the Consumerization space with solutions initially developed for adjacent product segments, most solutions tend to offer overlapping core functionality and tend to lack the cross-platform support critical to protect and manage the full spectrum of consumer technologies. Therefore, IT will have to integrate multiple offerings across different product categories: security solutions for Internet content security, mobile anti-malware and mobile data protection, Mobile Device Management tools for system provisioning and application management, and Telecom Expense Management providers for procurement, support and cost control of voice and data services.
Companies that are questioning whether or not to allow workers to bring personal devices into the workplace should just stop asking: It's clear that you can get a competitive edge when you put the right precautions in place. The BYOD phenomenon gives companies that allow it a competitive advantage as it enhances innovation and creativity in the workplace while reducing overall costs for the entire organization. The key to not being overwhelmed by this trend is that all these devices need to be secured by implementing the proper BYOD policies and procedures.
The lack of a strategic approach to Consumerization creates security risks, financial exposure and a management nightmare for IT. Rather than resist it, organizations should embrace Consumerization to unlock its business potential. This requires a strategic approach, flexible policies and appropriate security and management tools.
Consumerization and BYOD are disruptive and inevitable. But many IT leaders are slow to realize it. Like dinosaurs of a previous IT era, they are headed for extinction.
As vice president of Mobile Security at Trend Micro, Cesare Garlati serves as the evangelist for the enterprise mobility product line. Garlati is responsible for raising awareness of Trend Micro’s vision for security solutions in an increasingly consumerized IT world, as well as ensuring that customer insights are incorporated into Trend solutions. Prior to Trend Micro, he held director positions within leading mobility companies such as iPass, Smith Micro and WaveMarket. Prior to this, Garlati was senior manager of product development at Oracle, where he led the development of Oracle’s first cloud application and many other modules of the Oracle E-Business Suite.