RSSThe consumerization of IT has some limits
The consumerization of IT has not gone unnoticed among enterprise vendors, but it's not always clear how they should react to the trend. It's one thing to look at Apple's success penetrating the enterprise market by selling iPhones to individuals and see the power of bypassing the traditional and often hide-bound corporate procurement systems that vendors typically have to devote so much time and energy toward breaching; it's quite another to see how you might sell, say, a multi-million dollar ERP system using the same technique. At some level, certain resources are simply out of reach for the individual, or are useless if not implemented at the corporate level.
Nonetheless, the trend is real, and it seems like there must be something that the resourceful enterprise vendor can do to take advantage of it.
Web conferencing provider InterCall is giving it the old college try, commissioning a recent study to highlight the pressure that employees feel to stay connected to work 24/7 in these times of economic unrest, and pointing out that their solutions allow exactly that.
"We're still working on how this all fits together," admits Kathleen Finato, InterCall's Senior VP for Marketing and Product. As technology has shaped the abilities and expectations for employee participation outside the office over the past fifteen years, InterCall has seen attitudes evolve and grow, Finato says. When it comes to corporate purchasing of communications technologies, she said, "We think it's important to understand employee attitudes that influence these decisions."
My biggest question for anyone adopting this approach is, isn't the reason that consumerization has become such a powerful force in IT is exactly because employees haven't had much influence in these decisions? Aren't they bringing in consumer solutions precisely because corporate IT hasn't been listening to or providing adequate business solutions? As Finato pointed out, it's too soon to really know the answer to that yet. It struck me as strange, though admirable, that the InterCall survey chose to highlight the extent to which staff felt pressured to stay connected 24/7 to work. It seems to me that pressure, and the degree of employer control it implies in the relationship, is exactly the reason businesses won't feel any compunction to invest in any accommodating technologies for staff right now. I couldn't help but think that Microsoft, in another recent survey on the same topic, lead with a more persuasive point by emphasizing productivity increases cited by employees using remote conferencing systems… data that is supported by, if not highlighted in, the InterCall survey.
But you have to give props to InterCall for at least suggesting employers consider the work-life balance of their staff, even if history suggests it's a losing fight. I would have gone for the fear factor, myself: "Start accommodating your workers, or they'll come to their own accommodations instead!" But it struck me that InterCall, and other vendors like it, are simply structurally unsuited to taking advantage of the consumerization trend. They don't sell directly to consumers and probably don't have the corporate wherewithal to change that. The factors they point out are real, but if their message to CIOs and other executives is unheeded, the winners are going to be WebEx, Gotomeeting, or other upstart players such as GatherPlace or DimDim, all of which provide first-page purchasing, meet immediate rather than strategic needs, and have and seek broad consumer brand recognition.
If nothing else, though, InterCall have positioned themselves as the savior for those CIOs who do understand the long-term pressures on IT departments. Employees are desperate and overworked right now but they are still too scared to quit in large numbers; the recovery doesn't have that sort of traction yet. When it does, CIOs will have less leverage than ever, and vendors like InterCall, who show at least a glimmer of insight into employee motivations, may look like the voice of wisdom in the chaos of the dissolving IT department throne room.
