The new IT manager, part 1: trends affecting IT in...
Transcript of The new IT manager, part 1: trends affecting IT in...
The new IT manager, part 1: trends affecting IT in businessBy Larry Hawes
This research was underwritten by Citrix.
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Table of contentsEXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3
CLOUD COMPUTING 4
MOBILE COMPUTING 6
CONSUMERIZATION OF IT 9
SUMMARY 11
ABOUT LARRY HAWES 13
ABOUT GIGAOM PRO 13
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Executive summaryThe tables have turned for information technology (IT) managers. In even the largest
businesses, IT used to be able to dictate not only which computing assets would be
used by employees but also how they would be used. Those days are numbered in large
part because of three trends that are converging on organizations and their IT
departments: cloud computing, mobile computing and the consumerization of IT.
The New IT Manager is a three-part report meant to educate and advise IT managers on the latest developments within IT management for business.
Section 1 of this three-part report describes and quantifies each of these trends,
demonstrating that they are real now, growing rapidly and perilous to ignore.
Section 2 investigates the actual and potential impacts of these trends on IT
departments and their managers.
Section 3 presents actionable strategic options with which IT managers may
respond to the new reality of corporate computing that they face.
Cloud, mobile and consumerization are not the only trends changing the business
landscape, but they are among the most pronounced in terms of visibility and impact
on business computing. In the following pages, we present research data that shows
currently high and growing future levels of adoption for each trend. We also articulate
why each trend is important, from the perspectives of businesspeople and IT staff. The
benefits gained by businesses that have already embraced the cloud, mobile and
consumerization trends — increased productivity, agility, scalability and reliability, as
well as reduced operating costs — are fueling their rapid adoption. It is important to
remember that while each trend is powerful in its own right, the confluence of the
three is responsible for the overwhelming effect they are having on IT departments
and their managers (which we will examine in section 2 of the report).
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Cloud computing“Quick, to the cloud!” Those words, from Microsoft’s 2011 television ad campaign, best
summarize the direction businesses are taking with their computing environments.
The virtualization of applications, platforms and even computing infrastructure by
businesses is proceeding at a rapid pace. GigaOM Pro research conducted in 2011
found that 64 percent of businesses surveyed were experimenting with, or using in
production, cloud computing technologies (see figure 1).1 Clearly, cloud computing is
already a mainstream business practice.
Figure 1: How customers characterize their use of cloud computing
The adoption of cloud computing by businesses has not yet peaked, and GigaOM
Pro forecasts that cloud computing will continue to grow rapidly for the next several
years. Seventy-five percent of respondents in the previously cited GigaOM Pro
research study said they planned to conduct two-thirds of their computing activity in
the cloud by 2016. In other words, in less than five years, the majority of business
computing will be done in the cloud.
1 North Bridge Venture Partners, GigaOM Pro and The 451 Group. 2011 Future of Cloud Computing Survey Results. June 2011.
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The benefits of using the cloud are clear, from both the perspective of line-of-business
(LoB) executives and employees as well as IT managers and staff.
Businesses become more productive and agile by moving computing activities to the
cloud, which translates into faster revenue recognition and greater cost reductions.
Cloud computing raises employee productivity by enabling mobile work and cross-
firewall sharing of data, information and knowledge. Both abilities speed business
process cycle execution, giving employees additional time in which to do more work.
Cloud computing also increases business agility by providing companies with a low-
cost computing platform on which to conduct both strategic and tactical experiments
that, if successful, may be quickly made operational. For example, Netflix sensed that
its business model and core physical distribution channel for the movies it rented to
customers were threatened by new competitors building online video rental systems.
Netflix began to experiment with digital movie delivery using its own data centers.
Once an online system was successfully built, tested and ready to scale, Netflix
migrated it to Amazon's public cloud, which offers improved scalability and reliability
at a lower cost.
IT departments also benefit from cloud computing in terms of scalability, reliability,
agility and cost reduction. Scalability of computing systems is easier and faster to
achieve in a virtualized environment because of the significantly reduced need to
install, configure, test and deploy physical servers. System reliability is also enhanced
because multiple cloud environments can be relatively quickly and inexpensively
established and used when a primary (or secondary) system fails. As with LoB
experimenters, IT staff can use cloud-based infrastructure and platforms to rapidly
build and test new applications. Cloud enhancement of scalability, reliability and
agility all lead to measurable cost savings for IT departments, because those objectives
can be achieved more rapidly and at a lower unit cost compared to using physical
servers deployed in an on-premises data center.
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The largest benefit of cloud computing adoption by IT departments is one of focus. By
outsourcing the hosting, monitoring and management of computing applications,
platforms and infrastructure to public cloud providers such as Amazon, Rackspace and
Microsoft, IT departments can shift their focus to activities that add higher value. Even
if a company chooses to deploy a private cloud environment, its IT staff can refocus on
higher-value activities by using software to automate the monitoring and support of its
cloud computing assets (to the extent possible).
Approximately 35 law firms based in the Minneapolis–St. Paul metro area have
outsourced the responsibility for monitoring and managing many of their IT services
to Element Data Group, LLC. Element uses Citrix GoToManage software to juggle the
complexity of providing remote support, network monitoring, alerting, ticketing and
inventory management services to its law firm customers. Like these law firms, when
freed from the burden of “keeping the lights on,” the IT function in any business can
explore better ways to support the organization with new, IT-driven business models,
processes and applications instead of merely keeping the company’s computing
systems running.
Mobile computingMobile computing is another growing business trend. In 2011, 38 percent of
businesses surveyed by GigaOM Pro reported using mobile phones more than in the
previous year. Moreover, 43 percent anticipated using mobile phones even more this
year (see figure 2). Based on quantitative and qualitative research, GigaOM Pro
projects that by 2015, half of all devices operating on corporate networks will be
mobile devices.2
2 Abhijeet Rane and Tavishi Agrawal. “The future of workplaces.” San Francisco, Calif.: GigaOM Pro, March 2011.
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Figure 2: Current and anticipated business phone use
Source: GigaOM Pro
The growth of mobile business computing is hardly surprising. The use cases and
requirements, which have been in place for years, include:
Employees who frequently travel great distances
Salespeople, consultants, repair technicians and others who are at customer and
client locations more than in the office
Managers and employees on the floor in factories, warehouses and retail stores
Work-from-home employees and those that work out of coworking spaces
What has changed is that mobile devices and related technologies (networks,
protocols, standards and applications) have become more powerful, enabling us to do
more work on laptops, smartphones and tablets.
The growth in business use of mobile computing devices has also been fueled by the
parallel growth in cloud computing, discussed earlier in the report. In fact, the rapid
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growth of mobile business computing would not be possible without the cloud. Most
businesses have long had employees using laptops and virtual private networking
(VPN) software to access applications and databases on the corporate network over the
Internet. However, it was not until Research In Motion (RIM) released its Blackberry
Enterprise Server and Blackberry mobile devices that businesses could offer email
access over the airwaves. RIM’s system was, arguably, the first instance of private
cloud computing used by most businesses.
More recently, employees have begun to expect, even demand, access to more than
just email from their mobile devices. Those who use the iPhone or an Android-based
phone in their private lives have enjoyed access to applications and other web services
that were not available to them at work (unless they illicitly used their personal phone
to conduct business). Consumer tablets such as the iPad and various slates running
Android have similarly conditioned people to a new mode of personal computing that
they are eager to incorporate in their work lives.
Millennial workers (those born between 1980 and 2002) are even more likely than the
overall employee population to work from mobile devices. GigaOM Pro research
conducted in 2011 reveals that 40 percent of Millennials use a mobile device for work
on a weekly basis; that figure increases to 50 percent for younger Millennials (those
age 24 or younger) surveyed. Almost a third said they use a smartphone or tablet for
work on a daily basis. 3 As Millennials continue to make up a larger percentage of the
total workforce in the near future, their work habits, including a strong preference for
working from mobile devices, will increasingly alter the business computing
landscape.
3 David Card. “Millennials in the Enterprise, Part 1: Strategies for Supporting the New Digital Workforce.” San Francisco, Calif.: GigaOM Pro, July 2011.
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Consumerization of ITFor most of the history of electronic computing, new computing devices, software and
practices have been deployed to businesses first and consumers later (if at all).
Mainframes and minicomputers were solely marketed to businesses and almost
exclusively to larger organizations. Even the personal computer was originally
designed, built and sold for use by knowledge workers within large enterprises.
In the past decade, the pervasive penetration of the Internet in our personal lives, the
rapid improvements of electronic devices (including mobile phones), and the
emergence of de facto, open Web standards have resulted in a commercial focus on
innovation for consumers. Many of those consumer innovations have made their way
to the workplace, where they are used without the knowledge or approval of the
corporate IT department. In effect, the introduction and adoption flow of new
computing technologies has been flipped. In a recent survey of businesspeople, 64
percent of respondents said they learn about new technologies in their personal life
and bring them to the office.4 Consumer hardware, software and design sensibilities,
usually described as Web 2.0, are changing the way business computing is done.
On the hardware front, employees are rebelling against employer-mandated use of
specific devices and operating systems. The driver of the rebellion is user experience.
Seventy-seven percent of respondents to a recent survey of workers said they expect
devices used at work to be at least as good as the ones they use in their personal life.
The first shots of this battle were fired by employees wanting to use desktops and
laptops running Mac OS in the workplace instead of corporate-issued computers
running Microsoft Windows. Skirmishes have spread to mobile devices as well, since
many employees are tired of the limitations of the Blackberry platform and yearn to
use iOS and Android-based mobile devices at work. Many businesses have fashioned a
truce of sorts with their employees by instituting ”bring your own device” (BYOD)
4 Crawford Del Prete, et. al. “IT Consumers Transform the Enterprise: Are You Ready?.” Framingham, Mass.: International Data Corporation, May 2011 (PDF file).
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policies and programs. A 2011 survey found that just over 40 percent of the devices
used by information workers to access business applications were self-owned, up 10
percent from the previous year.5 Expect rapid, continued growth of BYOD practices in
businesses.
Figure 3: Devices used to access business applications
Source: Frank Gens, et. al. “2011 Consumerization of IT Study: Closing the ‘Consumerization Gap.’” International Data
Corporation, July 2011.
Employees are also increasingly choosing to buy and use newer, consumer-grade
software and services to do work rather than the legacy enterprise software purchased
and deployed by their employer. Again, this revolution is driven by the superior
simplicity and usability of these Web 2.0 services as well as the need for mobile access
to applications. This movement is taking place across multiple software categories,
most notably office productivity, unified communications and content management.
The use of consumer social media and networking services in place of traditional
enterprise collaboration applications is, undoubtedly, the single largest area of
5 Frank Gens et. al. “2011 Consumerization of IT Study: Closing the “Consumerization Gap.” Framingham, Mass.: International Data Corporation, July 2011 (PDF).
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software substitution. Thirty percent of information workers recently surveyed said
they are using consumer social media in the workplace more than in the previous year,
and nearly the same amount said they would likely use social media at work even more
in the future.6 Many businesses are responding by deploying enterprise 2.0 software
and services, which provide the simplified user experience of Web 2.0 services without
sacrificing necessary enterprise computing attributes such as security, reliability and
manageability. Other organizations are allowing the use of Facebook, LinkedIn,
YouTube and other consumer services but only to limited numbers of employees in
specific functions, such as marketing, customer service and human resources.
SummaryWe have briefly described and quantified three important trends affecting businesses
and their IT departments: cloud computing, mobile computing and the
consumerization of IT. By now, it should be apparent that none of these trends is a
passing fad that may be safely ignored. They are very real and powerful forces that are
reshaping how and where business computing is done.
Cloud computing adoption is growing rapidly because it offers clear, measurable
benefits to both LoB and IT. Lines of business can increase their productivity and
agility — both of which translate into increased or accelerated revenue and reduced
cost — by going to the cloud. IT departments can virtualize computing systems to
achieve superior scalability and reliability and reduce operating costs at the same time.
The cloud also makes IT staff more agile by providing a low-cost platform on which to
experiment. The potentially most valuable benefit of cloud computing for IT is the
ability to refocus from merely keeping existing systems operational to higher value-
added activities, such as working with LoB partners to develop new, IT-driven
business models, processes and applications.
6 Rane and Agrawal. Op. cit.
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Mobile computing also provides clear benefits to businesses, especially in terms of
productivity. Employees can get more work done, because they are able to access data
and information as well as complete business process activities while away from the
office. The increasing demand for businesses to support mobility is also attributable to
demographic changes in the workforce. As mentioned above, Millennials prefer to
work on mobile devices and spend more time doing so than the average older
employee.
The consumerization of IT is accelerating both of the other trends discussed. For the
first time in the history of electronic computing, consumer usage of IT is strongly
influencing and leading business computing practices. Workers, particularly younger
ones, expect the devices and applications provided by their employers to be as easy to
use and as powerful as those they use outside work. “Bring your own device” programs
and the sanctioned use of consumer-grade Web 2.0 services by some employees are
growing corporate responses to this expectation gap, as is the procurement of
enterprise 2.0 software and services.
While each of these trends is powerful in its own right, their confluence is creating a
crisis for IT department managers and their staff. The next section of this report
examines some actual and potential impacts of these trends on corporate IT
departments and employees, including significantly increased complexity of their jobs,
a loss of control of IT procurement and policy, and the reduction of IT departments’
head count and budgets.
For further information on the new IT manager, see parts 2 and 3 of this series
(forthcoming on GigaOM Pro).
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About Larry HawesLarry Hawes is the founder of Dow Brook Advisory Services, where he advises
enterprise software vendors on product road map, positioning, messaging, and merger
and acquisition strategies. He has been published in Wired, InformationWeek, CNET
and many other publications. He also writes on his personal blog, Together, We Can!
His previous experience includes work as an analyst and consultant at Delphi Group
and almost five years as an IBM consultant and program manager. Most recently he
was the lead analyst for collaboration and enterprise social software at the Gilbane
Group. Larry holds a BA in Music from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and
an MA in Historical Musicology from the University of Michigan. He also holds an
MBA from Babson College.
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