“Consumerization of IT” is about companies and employees choosing to use applications and devices developed for consumer use for commercial and individual work productivity purposes. A Unisys and IDC study on consumerization found that employees are increasingly co-mingling commercial and personal data on company and employee-owned devices. In fact, 40 percent of the devices they use to access business applications are personally owned – a 10% increase from last year. This presents both an opportunity and a challenge for the business or organization since they are falling further behind employee usage of consumer technologies in the workplace. Never before in the history of IT have consumer devices and applications been more technologically advanced than their corporate device counterparts. By embracing the trend, organizations can satisfy their end user expectations, and at the same time leverage the increased productivity these devices bring due to their advanced functionality and indispensible nature across the work-home continuum. However, this challenges IT organizations to respond with services capable of supporting increased variety while managing business productivity, security and maintaining tight cost controls.

We invite you to read the Unisys point of view white paper on Consumerization of IT / Mobility and learn where it can be applied within the enterprise for business advantage.

The Consumerization of IT effect is driving organizations to incorporate mainstream consumer technologies within their business models to appease a growing base of tech-savvy employees, consumers and citizens. Over the next several years we anticipate this effect will continue to accelerate within corporate IT environments as new generations of powerful consumer mobile devices proliferate and as tech-savvy business users increasingly look to inter-mingle work and personal activities on their own high-end technology. This consumerization of IT is one of three core business drivers behind the major shift towards widespread enterprise mobility. The other key drivers are organizational needs to improve worker productivity, with support for information and transactions at any time and any place, and to better connect with customers and partners who expect real-time interactions and ubiquitous access to products and services.

Organizations need to develop an integrated strategy to maximize the value from their mobile computing investments and initiatives to address various challenges such as device management and security and to determine how and where to gain the best return on investment.

The consumerization debate does not always have to be about opposing tendencies between choice and flexibility versus standardization and cost containment. We believe that end users can have the choice and flexibility they demand, and the IT organization can continue to safeguard cost, security and supportability. To achieve this level of agility, the unique needs of an organization must be translated to understandable, but essential end user computing policies which are then reflected in a service framework that embraces application and device choices through a broader, role-based service catalog. This allows users to work with the latest technologies in a way that allows them to be more productive and cost conscious, based on their job function, skill-set, work-style and lifestyle.

It all starts with fundamental policy adjustments that align with IT strategic plans; policies which allow employees to participate in the selection and funding of some or all of the services, thus providing savings which can be reinvested in application and network transformation initiatives to support more choice. This can be as overt as “Bring Your Own” (BYO) programs where employees invest in and bring their devices into the workplace. Alternatively, expense reimbursement and stipend programs, or Managed Digital Allowance (MDA) programs, can be adopted where companies provide employees a portion of the funds to invest in their service catalog of choice.

At Unisys, we see the consumerization of IT as an integral part of our Application Modernization and Outsourcing, End User Outsourcing and Support Services, and Security portfolios. Our focus is to help our customers exploit the full potential of consumerization and mobility solutions to enhance their mission-critical applications and business processes and to help them secure and manage an ever-growing array of device types. We provide a full range of mobility solutions from mobile advisory, to mobile application development and application mobile-enablement, to mobile device security and mobile device management. We invite you to visit the links to our relevant portfolio solutions:

• End User Support Solutions
• Application Modernization Solutions
• ClearPath Systems and Services
• Converged Remote Infrastructure Management