- The ‘Consumerization’ of Information Technology
18 Jun 04 | Position Papers
The ‘consumerization’ of information technology is a powerful trend that promises many significant long-term business consequences, including radically lower costs, greatly improved functionality, and successive generations of users who are ever more technology-savvy.
Consumer devices and infrastructure are also becoming an important platform for a wide variety of innovative new products, services and applications.
In this paper we take a high-level look at what we mean by consumerization, why this process matters to businesses of all sizes, and how companies should begin to approach and manage this important and still not fully appreciated phenomenon.
Subsequent research will focus on consumerization’s effect upon IT infrastructure, recommended strategies for implementation and detailed case studies.
We believe that this issue is important enough to merit ongoing research coverage for the next few years.
- 2008 Study Tour Report: The Consumerization of Enterprise IT – Choices and Risks in Moving to the Cloud
9 Feb 09 | Study Tour Reports
The 2008 Study Tour visited a wide range of companies – vendors and users, large and small, established and start-ups – who are active in developing and using computing in the cloud.
Cloud computing has arrived. At present the expression is not strictly defined and is used to cover more than one IT concept, but these are concepts that exist, are being used, can produce immediate business benefits and show great promise for the future. If you have not done so already, it’s time to start piloting projects to get to understand both the issues and the benefits of this new computing paradigm.
Read Ed Sperling's article on 16 March 2009 from Forbes.com on Security Risk: Frustrated Workers
- Organizing IT for the Future
27 Jan 09 | Position Papers
From the earliest days of commercial computing in the 1960s, there has been speculation about the best way to direct and manage Enterprise IT. The function that was once known as the Electronic Data Processing (EDP) department, and later the Management Information Systems (MIS) organization, faced challenges that even today have not been fully resolved. How much money should a given company spend on information technology? How does management know whether it is getting an acceptable return on these investments? And how does a business go about determining its internal computing priorities and decision-making processes?
In this Position Paper, we share both our research findings and our overall sense of where Enterprise IT is heading over the medium to long term, as well as the many short-term effects stemming from the current market downturn. Our goal is to work toward a shared vision of what the IT function will look like, given the position, industry and aims of an individual firm. While many uncertainties remain, we seek to help our clients articulate their overall direction and strategy in what is now a rapidly changing business and technology context. As always, we look forward to your comments and suggestions.
- Cloud Computing and Collaboration/Social Network Trends
3 Dec 08 | Presentation
Doug Neal (LEF EP Research Fellow) presents the results from the 2008 Study Tour – that centred around the current state of automated collaboration tools, organizational usage, and business value realized – relating to these Web 2.0 trends. He will provide fresh insights that emerged from tour visits with over a dozen companies – including Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Cisco and Amazon.
See event: Organizing IT for the Future: Who Does What, Where and When? (3 December 2008)
- Findings from the 2008 Study Tour: The Consumerization of Enterprise IT - Choices and Risks in Moving to the Cloud
25 Nov 08 | Presentation
Consumerized services, available to anyone, delivered from ‘the cloud’, have become widely discussed as Cloud Computing. While millions of people and thousands of businesses are already using Cloud Computing – whether they know it or not – it is early days with the technologies that are being deployed. Enterprises need to understand exactly what is meant by ‘Cloud Computing’ as every vendor tries to turn the phrase to their advantage. Having developed a clear understanding of what Cloud Computing is and can be, each enterprise must explore the extent to which the approach is applicable to them.
See event: Findings from the 2008 Study Tour: The Consumerization of Enterprise IT - Choices and Risks in Moving to the Cloud (25 November 2008)
- Workbook for Harnessing Consumerization and Web 2.0
25 Jun 08 | Workbooks
This Workbook is about taking advantage of the consumerization of information technology – the process by which information technology products and services are being embraced by society in general, supported by the emergence of the second generation of the Internet, Web 2.0. This transition is one that will be on our agenda for the next decade. Some of the most important decisions IT will make will be about where and when to take advantage of consumerization. This book is organized to help you to plan and implement your strategy in three important areas of opportunity that consumerization is opening up:
- Employees and customers have become much smarter about information technology. There is a growing awareness that value is increasingly created by the way that employees – from accountants to zoologists – make use of or mediate information technology.
- There is now a wide range of consumerized products and services, typically available through the Internet, providing a new, lower-cost public infrastructure that is increasingly appropriate for use by enterprises.
- There are new business opportunities as consumerization and Web 2.0 drive business process and value redefinition. IT needs to have structured conversations with the business about the consequences of these changes.
- Green IT – The Role of Consumerization and Web 2.0
12 Jun 08 | Presentation
In this presentation, Doug will discuss how new consumerized and Web 2.0 technologies can help develop and deploy some of the systems that we will need. Particular emphasis will be given to the role of new capabilities, such as mashups, social software, collaboration, virtualization, and cloud computing in building a holistic approach to Green.
We may not be far off from a time when you will be expected to post your personal carbon footprint on your Facebook page.
See event: Green IT - Moving Beyond the 2% Solution (12 June 2008)
- Consumerization/Web 2.0 and the Green IT Debate
5 Dec 07 | Presentation
As Yale Professor Daniel Esty argues in the best-selling book Green to Gold, going ‘Green’ can open up many new paths to improved profitability. And just as large enterprises have used sophisticated IT systems to meet their security, privacy and Sarbanes-Oxley requirements, so will they need to take a holistic, information-based approach to managing their organization’s changing environmental footprint.
Achieving this will require significant IT initiatives, many based on the Web 2.0 technologies we studied on our 2006 tour to Silicon Valley.
In this session, Doug discusses key learnings from our Green IT research and 2007 Study Tour whilst examining the implications for Web 2.0.
See event: Consumerization and Web 2.0
- Harnessing Web 2.0: Enterprise Strategies for Living on the Web
3 Apr 07 | Single Topic Reports
Download this Single Topic Report
Adobe Acrobat (0.99Mb)
This report is the latest in a series of projects over the last five years supported by our Consumerization Working Group, a collaboration between LEF researchers and client companies with an ongoing interest in this topic.
These consumerization evangelists have been meeting regularly to share knowledge and review mass-market IT trends that are relevant to enterprise IT. Over the last year it has become clear that the set of technologies, trends and capabilities generally encompassed by the term Web 2.0 will force wide-ranging and unprecedented changes. The Working Group recognized that their organizations need to be aware of and plan for those changes, and to that end proposed this Research Study.
We believe that the consumerization of the IT industry will only build momentum over the coming years, and thus we expect to continue to rely on the Working Group to help us explore new ideas and identify emerging practices. We thank the members for their time, effort and support, and invite other clients to join us in this important and ongoing area of research.
- The Internet is disruptive, again - What you need to know about Web 2.0, the next generation of the Internet
29 Jun 06 | Journal Articles
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The following are a series of management messages about Web 2.0, how it differs from the first generation of the Internet and what these differences mean for enterprise agility, innovation and the careers of IT directors. The future, for all of us, is living on the web.