One area of focus we are seeing today is the Consumerization of IT. Many IT services are becoming a commodity in the consumer marketplace. Most of these services can be purchased online with a credit card (if they aren’t free) and are readily available to the general public. Mobility products (Blackberry, iPhone and Droid) and Cloud Computing (most notably SaaS) have helped spur the Consumerization of IT over the past few years, and now. IT departments are trying to determine how these technologies fit into their strategic roadmaps and service offerings. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Within the next three years more companies will start to move to a model where they provide information workers with a stipend for IT commodity tools. Tools such as PC’s, PDA’s, and connectivity (for remote or teleworkers) will be left up to the employee to choose and purchase with a preset financial amount provided by the company. As work and life roles continues to blur so will the tools that information workers use. This will mean that employees will be willing to purchase their own products so that they can use the device to stay connected with what is important to them.
IT services will continue to move towards a consumer model due to lowering price points, increased commoditization and increased time to market from external vendors. This trend will strain many IT organizations if they try to control the environment which is contradictory to a commodity market driven approach. These are just a few examples of what we are currently seeing, but the trend looks to be a permanent one.
Do you think the Consumerization of IT services is a long-lasting trend?
Scott Archibald is a Managing Director at Bender Consulting. You can follow Scott on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Scott_Archibald
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