C o n s umerization of IT Study: C l o s i n g t h e C o n s u m e r ization Gap

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1 I D C I V I E W C O N T E N T C o n s umerization of IT Study: C l o s i n g t h e C o n s u m e r ization Gap July 2011 By Frank Gens, Danielle Levitas, and Rebecca Segal Sponsored by Unisys Content for this paper is excerpted directly from the IDC iview 2011 Consumerization of IT Study: Closing the Consumerization Gap, July 2011, sponsored by Unisys. The multimedia content can be viewed at Consumerization Is Accelerating Consumerization of IT is fundamentally changing the way IT and business in general operates today. It is deeper and much farther-reaching than simply allowing employees to bring their own personally-purchased PCs and devices to work (also known as bring your own devices, or BYOD). It touches upon enterprise use of applications such as Facebook, Twitter, and other social media with consumer roots, and is dramatically extending a wide range of employee-facing (internal) and customer and partner-facing (external) business processes. To better understand the size, scope, and complexity of this phenomenon, IDC worked with Unisys for the second year running to gauge how consumer technologies are being used in the workplace, and how enterprise IT shops are faring in addressing this changing landscape. As we did last year, we conducted a major, worldwide survey of over 3,000 information workers and business executives in nine countries. Some results were expected, others were surprising. Overall, we found that employees who use PCs, smartphones, and/or tablets for work for the rest of this study they will be referred to as iworkers are moving much faster to adopt and use consumer technologies in the workplace than most IT groups are moving to support them. Perhaps more concerning, this trend is happening faster than IT realizes. This large and growing consumerization gap is not only a threat to employee productivity and morale it s also a growing threat to enterprises ability to compete in the marketplace, as these technologies are also becoming important tools for reaching customers, prospects, and partners. Key findings regarding the accelerating rate of consumer IT adoption in the enterprise include: Consumer technologies are already being used extensively in the enterprise, and are growing in importance Demand for mobility is accelerating and amplifying all of this smartphones, tablets, and laptops continue to grow at the expense of traditional desktop PCs and as secondary and tertiary devices to work-issued PCs It s not just about devices: there s growing business use of a diverse range of social media applications with consumer roots The flow is two-way: work is flowing into personal time as well, which makes workers more productive IDC 1156

2 Ongoing IDC research indicates enterprises are embracing the employee-owned device model. This is due to the rise in individual smartphone purchasing, enterprises need to cut costs, and the availability of mobile device management (MDM) solutions that address a heterogeneous device environment. Figure 1 demonstrates the magnitude of this trend. Today, 40.7% of the devices used by information workers to access business applications are ones they own themselves, including home PCs, smartphones, and tablets such as Apple s ipad. This is up 10 points from last year s study in which 30.7% of the devices iworkers used to access business applications were personally-owned. Over 30% of iworkers use personally owned PCs for work, and nearly 10% reported using their personal tablet for work a device that did not even exist just 15 months ago. By the way, employees told us that, by 2012, tablets importance for doing work will grow more than that of any other device type IDC

3 Mobility is clearly a key driver in consumerization. As Figure 2 shows, PCs remain the most critical device for getting work done; that hasn t changed materially (yet). What has changed is that iworkers are increasingly dependent upon more devices (more types of devices and more personally acquired devices) to get their work done, and are more dependent on mobile devices (as smartphone sales nearly double year on year, tablets rise in importance, and desktop PCs give way to laptops). Consumerization of IT with or without IT support is happening and is creating more complexity for organizations IDC 3

4 Consumerization is not just about devices. As Figure 3 shows, use of consumer-inspired social media such as Facebook and Twitter is also growing fast: almost twice as many information workers say they are using these technologies in the workplace as last year. More employees are leveraging more readily available tools, and the more customers, prospects, and employees adopt these tools, the greater value they bring to iworkers (due to the network effect). Further, because these tools are largely free, easy to access and use, and already familiar to many iworkers from their consumer life, it s no surprise to see their adoption on the rise. This adds another dimension to the complexity for IT, because more devices, times more apps, equals exponentially more complexity for IT to support and manage IDC

5 And as we all know, these technologies are extending the workplace into our personal world. Figure 4 shows this rather dramatically: almost 50% of information workers have used consumer technologies to conduct work on vacation, 29% while in bed, almost 20% while driving and 5% while in a place of worship. One out of two IT organizations in our study stated employee satisfaction and productivity are primary benefits to the organization of allowing employees to buy their own devices, and the evidence can be seen in this figure. iworkers are making the most of their commute time (including when flying), are being more productive during so-called downtime (vacations, watching TV), and are even squeezing in work in the bedroom and at family gatherings! Further, driving home the tie between mobility and the desire to squeeze more productivity out of their day, those with ipads were on average at least 10% more likely to engage in work from alternative locations. We believe a key reason for this particular finding is that the ipad is especially good for instant-on, quick access to work snacking. If you have a few minutes in between or during personal obligations, an ipad is a good choice because it has a much larger screen than a smartphone and a much faster boot-up than a PC or Mac IDC 5

6 IT Is Struggling to Keep Up So how are enterprises (and their IT groups) responding to this pervasive trend? The good news is that enterprise IT groups acknowledge that consumerization is important to their businesses. The bad news is that they are struggling to keep up. Some of the key takeaways from this year s research are that: Serious gaps exist in perception between iworkers and IT organizations Even IT organizations themselves say they are clearly being overwhelmed by the consumerization trend Figure 5 shows that IT leaders recognize reality: over 70% said that consumerization is inevitable, makes employees more productive, and will be an integral part of how their enterprise conducts business. Further, nearly 8 out of 10 say their executives are expecting them to support consumer devices in the enterprise. But the figure also hints at problems for IT: 80% say consumerization increases IT department workload IDC

7 Unfortunately, both IT and the enterprise s employees rated IT s performance in supporting these technologies poorly. Figure 6 shows iworkers rating for their IT organization s support for consumer devices and applications across the board is less than 3 on a 5-point scale. But much worse was IT s own self-assessment in some cases it was a full half-point lower than that of its employees! Most disturbing, IT groups rated themselves worse than they did last year they feel they re losing ground when it comes to closing the consumerization gap. IT s self-rating fell in each category in Figure 6, with the largest drops in support for employee-owned smartphones and tablets (from 2.7 to 2.4) and integration of mobile devices with enterprise applications (from 2.6 to 2.3) IDC 7

8 The consumerization gap starts with visibility Figure 7 demonstrates that IT underestimated the number of information workers using consumer devices for work by nearly 50%, and the use of social networks for customer communication by almost 46%. iworkers overwhelmingly tell us they are using smartphones at work, but smartphones are only on the radar screen for 34% of IT respondents. Similarly, 13% of iworkers are using tablets in the office, but only 6% of IT respondents are aware they are being used IDC

9 The visibility gap also extends to the use of social media and other consumer-rooted applications. Figure 8 shows that social networks and communities are being used at high rates by iworkers for communication functions: over one in three say they use them for customer communications, employee communication, and advertising/pr. But tellingly, IT again underestimates the use of social networks for business, in some cases strikingly so. Many iworkers are clearly using these tools off the grid, often without IT s knowledge or approval IDC 9

10 The slow pace of adoption in IT organizations actually comes as no surprise to IT itself. iworkers rate themselves as technology adopters along a nice bell curve a few percent say they are early adopters/first to use, a few are late adopters/laggards, with the vast majority sitting somewhere in between (Figure 9). In contrast, nearly half of IT respondents rate their department as late adopters of/last to use technology, with a very small percent calling themselves early adopters. This speaks loudly to the lack of confidence among IT organizations IDC

11 Not only do IT organizations rate themselves as late adopters, but in fact they are also significantly behind in adapting to the use of consumer devices in the enterprise (Figure 10). Shockingly, more than 3 out of 4 are not taking advantage of smart mobile devices as a compute platform to interact with employees and customers by modifying key applications, and have no plans to do so. Importantly, this gap exists both in internally-facing applications (which employees would use to conduct day-to-day functions and activities) and customer-facing applications (which enable new ways to interact with customers and support new business models). The slow pace of application integration shows a lack of process for interaction at the point of customer contact if that existed, business applications could be better used on mobile devices to open up revenue opportunities IDC 11

12 Looking at the same data by industry in Figure 11, while the number of organizations planning to adapt customer-facing apps to work with smart mobile devices is low across the board, it is somewhat higher in consumer-facing industries such as healthcare, retail, and finance. Traditional B2B industries such as professional services and manufacturing/construction have the lowest rates of adoption. This is evidence that pull-through from customers (i.e., business pressure to engage with customers using smart mobile devices) is one of the forces starting to drive a number of leading-edge organizations to embrace consumerization of IT. But even for industries that are ahead of the average, the rate of current development or plans to develop or modify apps to work with mobile devices is disappointingly low. Companies need to realize and prioritize these efforts so that they can make employees more productive and serve customers and partners more effectively as the global workforce becomes more dependent upon smartphones and tablets. No wonder that IT thinks it s failing as do iworkers. What s Holding IT Back? IT understands that consumerization is important and inevitable (even as it underestimates the extent to which consumerization is currently happening). So what s holding it back from deeper support for consumerization? This study surfaced three key issues: IT is concerned about security IT resourcing is strapped IT policy is lagging IDC

13 First is the issue of security. Figure 12 shows that, from IT s perspective, security concerns are the single largest barrier to more successfully supporting consumerization. Generic security concerns and concern around introduction of viruses are the top two barriers cited. Developing policies to support and manage these devices is the other barrier that clearly stood out (more on this later) IDC 13

14 Digging deeper into the security issue, IT perceives employee-provided devices to be the major threat (Figure 13). While it s no surprise that IT sees company-provided devices as less of a threat, the overwhelming degree to which it considers employee-provided devices a threat nearly three times as much is notable IDC

15 Devices are not the only perceived threat. While more than 70% of IT respondents believe employeeprovided devices to be a threat, a somewhat lower but significant percentage believe that consumerrooted applications are also a threat, with over 30% citing social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter/microblogging (Figure 14) IDC 15

16 Looking at security policies actually being practiced, some good news is that 90% of IT executives organizations are doing automatic antivirus updates on mobile devices, and 59% perform automatic backup of these devices - both up from last year s study (Figure 15). Less encouraging is a significant drop in the organizations delivering single sign-on, requiring stronger passwords, and training employees on device and information security. Not only is IT feeling less capable and competent, but they are actually doing less to protect mobile device use across a number of key areas than they were last year. Even as organizations are experiencing greater consumer device adoption within the enterprise, IT is struggling to keep up IDC

17 Taking a step back, IT organizations are feeling overwhelmed in general by the consumerization trend, and suffer from limited resources to implement the necessary changes. Figure 16 shows IT executives rating of the urgency of seven broad areas of consumerization support from developing better policies around consumer devices, to upgrading the datacenter to support consumerization, to helping employees set up their devices. All seven were rated urgent to extremely urgent! Addressing that long and urgent to-do list will take smart re-prioritization of resource and investment. Comparing these data to IT s rating of security as the overwhelming barrier to broader adoption of consumerized IT in the enterprise reveals a bit of disconnect. IDC believes this primary focus on security is likely a fig leaf that IT is hiding behind, and surmises the real issue is IT wanting to maintain control of the infrastructure. On many occasions, IDC has seen IT managers play the security card when they don t want to accommodate something new. The range of issues surrounding consumerization of IT is in fact very wide, but security is a bogeyman, both easy to point to and very difficult to argue against IDC 17

18 Enterprise policies around consumer technologies are also disconnected from the reality on the ground. For example, 87% of IT groups claim their policy is for iworkers to source smart mobile devices from the enterprise, and for the enterprise to cover all costs (Figure 17). Yet over half of employees that use iphones, Android phones, and ipads for work said they bought their device themselves, without any reimbursement from their employer. Notably, BlackBerrys a longestablished corporate standard are more likely to fit the corporate purchasing profile. This data point shows the disconnect between IT s policies toward the purchase and use of smart mobile devices, and the grassroots adoption of these devices in the organization today. Enterprises think they are in control of these devices, but in fact they are in control of only a small part of their infrastructure, with a significant number of employees going off the grid in acquiring and using their own devices IDC

19 The policy disconnect extends to social media and applications as well (Figure 18). iworkers are taking advantage of a broad range of consumer services at work, and a large percentage of them believe that their IT organizations permit activities such as accessing non-work Web sites, storing personal data on and attaching personal devices to PCs, and accessing social networks for personal reasons. But in reality, a significantly lower percent of organizations (with the exception of accessing non-work ) have policies permitting such activities. Once again, the gap between what IT policies say employees can do and what employees think they can do/are actually doing is wide. Steps to Close the Gap So consumerization is important and inevitable, but most IT organizations are poorly equipped for it and see significant barriers to supporting adoption. What, then, is the average IT organization to do? IDC believes there are several key things to consider: The market (and your employees) is moving faster than you are. Last year s study highlighted the gap between employee adoption of consumer devices and applications, and IT s readiness to support and leverage this trend. Over the past 12 months, that gap has widened. While the number of mobile devices and applications has continued to grow exponentially, with the total number of mobile applications in the market more than doubling year over year, IT organizations are not keeping pace. A paltry number of them have made enterprise applications accessible via mobile devices or even plan to do so in the next 12 months IDC 19

20 iworkers report using mobile devices and Web-based applications at a growing rate, and for more critical functions such as communicating with customers. This is no longer an analyst forecast or a thought experiment. It s reality, and IT needs to urgently accelerate the pace to get with the program. Develop better visibility into your own enterprise s adoption of consumer-rooted technologies. Across the board, this 2011 study shows that IT departments significantly underestimate the nature and degree of consumerization going on right under their noses. IT is operating with blinders on, and policies are out of step with the way consumers are using devices and consumer applications. IT needs to put the tools and procedures in place to actually understand what types of devices and applications are being used throughout the organization and for what purposes as a first step to actually getting in front of this trend. Establish, or revamp, policies to deal with reality. Consumerization of IT is happening whether IT supports it or not; just say no obviously isn t working. It s arguably worse if employees are using the devices but IT is telling them not to. If IT were at least supporting these devices, it would have a fighting chance at getting the security and management issues right; but by putting blinders on, IT relinquishes all control. IT needs to revisit and revamp its policies to reflect what is actually happening in the enterprise, and to evolve from a knee-jerk don t do it policy to more sophisticated policies that allow workers to take advantage of these services without disrupting the IT infrastructure or compromising corporate security. Invest in technologies and services that allow security on devices you don t control. Handin-hand with recognizing that devices are being introduced into the organization over which it has no control, IT must implement new security policies, procedures, and technologies to address the very real threats the devices bring. One example would be client virtualization by moving applications and data from the device itself to a secure, centralized location, IT can re-exert an element of control. Reconsider your build/buy approach. The reality is that cloud and managed service providers offer a built-in way to support multiple mobile devices; outsourcing services to a providermanaged cloud can enable the organization to support most of the leading devices without having to dedicate internal staff or resources to build out the appropriate infrastructure. Leveraging cloud services to provide key IT services may help you avoid reinventing the wheel. Engage business executives. Finally, given that these technologies are being used more and more by employees to reach out to customers and prospects, business executives increasingly see use of consumer technologies as a path to the marketplace, to reach new customers, to engage customers more deeply, and to take advantage of new business models. It s important to reach out to and engage these business executives you may find that their support is your best business case for funding consumerization of IT. Consumerization of IT is no longer a matter of employees bringing smart phones and ipads into the office. It is now a phenomenon that opens up a whole new world of commerce and communication for enterprises of all types. For any business wishing to improve its connections with customers, partners, and employees; deliver services anytime, anywhere; and, perhaps most importantly, reach critical new markets, it is essential that the IT department be able to support and enable such capabilities. It s time that CIOs and IT managers step up to the challenge and the opportunity. Methodology The information in this iview comes from two Unisys-sponsored global surveys conducted by IDC in May IDC surveyed 564 IT managers from organizations of more than 500 employees with responsibility for purchasing computing devices or applications to support their enterprise. In a separate study, IDC interviewed 2,659 information workers (iworkers)/consumers who use smart mobile devices for business or personal use IDC

21 Respondents in both surveys were randomly recruited and screened from international panels, and came from nine countries: U.S., Brazil, Germany, France, UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, Australia, and New Zealand. These studies were a follow-on to inaugural research conducted in June 2010, which also surveyed both IT managers and iworkers on a global basis. Note that the figures in some graphs may not add up to 100% due to rounding. A B O U T T H I S P U B L I C A T I ON This publication was produced by IDC Go-to-Market Services. The opinion, analysis, and research results presented herein are drawn from more detailed research and analysis independently conducted and published by IDC, unless specific vendor sponsorship is noted. IDC Go-to-Market Services makes IDC content available in a wide range of formats for distribution by various companies. A license to distribute IDC content does not imply endorsement of or opinion about the licensee. C O P Y R I G H T A N D R E S T R I C T I O N S Any IDC information or reference to IDC that is to be used in advertising, press releases, or promotional materials requires prior written approval from IDC. For permission requests, contact the GMS information line at or gms@idc.com. Translation and/or localization of this document requires an additional license from IDC. For more information on IDC, visit For more information on IDC GMS, visit Global Headquarters: 5 Speen Street Framingham, MA USA P F IDC 21