2012 Prediction: AppSense
Flexibility Will Become the Most Important IT Competency
The last several years have brought unprecedented change to enterprise computing. Windows 7 has ushered in the most significant operating system migration in over a decade. Numerous new desktop and application virtualization technologies have appeared alongside traditional enterprise software delivery techniques. Meanwhile, non-traditional devices such as the iPad have come along and changed everything.
These developments fly in the face of the conventional wisdom that standardization is the key to a well-performing and cost-efficient enterprise IT function. For example, while the goals of desktop and application virtualization are fundamentally the reduction of IT cost and complexity, the reality is that they do not effectively address every use case. As a result, the efficiencies gained are easily swallowed by the added overhead of a new way of doing things on top of existing PC-centric IT practices.
The steady ascent of employee-provided devices also undermines standardization. Regardless of how real you believe the “consumerization of IT” trend is, the undeniable reality is that more and more knowledge workers are beginning to resemble expert mechanics, arriving at the workplace with their own unique sets of tools assembled through time and experience. A developer may arrive with a MacBook Pro outfitted with a highly customized set of development and design tools. A star salesperson may arrive with a tablet, smartphone and an arsenal of productivity applications that augment their company-provided PC to provide an essential edge over their competition. The traditional IT mindset is to squelch this heterogeneity due to concerns about IT efficiency and security. However, it is increasingly obvious that doing so diminishes the value of the enterprise’s most important assets: its people.
With that as a backdrop, we will likely see two types of behavior on the part of enterprise IT teams in 2012. Some will attempt to fight the industry inertia and cling to a “take it or leave it” mindset centered on uniformity. While this may have worked in the past, it's now readily apparent that this thinking comes at a cost in terms of employee productivity and satisfaction. Moreover, there are numerous examples of how enterprise employees have a knack for staying one step ahead of IT with their ability to circumvent computing restrictions.
The most effective IT organizations in 2012 will be the ones that accept and embrace a new user-centric approach to enterprise computing. Becoming more user-centric does not necessarily mean giving up on the essential goals of information security and IT efficiency. What it means is shifting management and policy focus to users and establishing a desktop management competency that assumes an ongoing lifecycle marked by constant change and a growing diversity of computing models. Approached thoughtfully and effectively, this will allow enterprise IT teams to empower and delight users without letting support costs skyrocket or creating new areas of security exposure. In fact, a user-centric approach will arguably be more secure in that users will have less incentive to circumvent IT-imposed restrictions.
The need for traditional device patching and administration will not go away with a user-centric approach. However, rather than making these “plumbing” activities a core desktop management focus, forward-thinking IT teams will focus more on enabling and governing user activities across a heterogeneous collection of computing technologies. Rather than trying to control every device and banning devices deemed uncontrollable, they will instead focus on the flexibility to adapt to possible computing “contexts” for which the device being used is just one of many possible variables.
