Liberal leanings in IT

Consumerisation will lead to more liberalisation around the use of IT within many organisations, argues Craig Wellman

As we move into 2012, the subject of supplier consolidation is high on the agenda for all customers. We are already seeing a trend for customers wishing to use fewer suppliers when they need to procure and then run their communications. There is an obvious cost saving here which plays well to most, if not all, organisations at the moment.

For me, the primary trend is currently towards reducing complexity.

However, this key trend also relates to how customers operate. As their telecommunications requirements become more complex - or the way their employees work and communicate evolves to embrace new technology - partnering with just one trusted supplier can help customers simplify their strategy. This is opposed to confusing matters by trying to incorporate the input of multiple conflicting suppliers with different agendas.

Clearly, choosing the right partner is critical here. But this single-source approach ensures that the customers can concentrate on things that will make their businesses more effective.

The second trend is about customers seeking to harness their existing assets.

This is not a new phenomenon, but it is one that tends to expand exponentially in an economic downturn. However, this time firms may almost inadvertently find themselves on a unified communications (UC) journey.

This is because these organisations - more often than not - are looking to make more of their mobile or fixed-line investments by integrating them with other applications. They may not be investing in the newest and shiniest UC kit, but, considering the main intention of a UC strategy is to derive business benefit, it is not what you have but rather what you do with it that counts.

Becoming liberal

The third trend is still nascent compared to the first two. It is related to the consumerisation of IT. Through ever-increasing consumerisation, employees are forcing the hand of the IT department, because these employees now expect an experience of IT at work that resembles what they probably have at home.

Suppliers with a progressive approach are beginning to understand that they can help their customers not only gain benefits from technology, but do something even more valuable: help their customers become more liberal, in a sense. That is not a word used often in relation to IT.

By this, I mean that enlightened customers have the opportunity to get ahead of user demands here. They are doing so by opening up their policies and increasingly allowing staff to make more of their own decisions about how they use IT. This is about so much more than simply giving them access to their own mobile phone. It also sees staff setting their own levels of access and control, within certain parameters, of course.

The IT department retains ownership of the network and its critical security and quality-of-service levels. Outside of this, individuals will be able to make more of their own decisions on issues such as the end point (that is, whether they want to connect their iPad or iPhone to the corporate network, and how they embrace technology, or not, depending on their requirements).

It is also about which platform the customer uses to collaborate and communicate. For example, it could be the Microsoft stack, or perhaps corporate social networking such as Yammer or Facebook, or maybe even Skype.

So rather than understanding every individual user’s requirement, the key role now played by the IT department is to be open-minded enough to allow users to make a real choice for themselves. This means that users and their unique requirements will no longer be subjugated to rigid corporate security and policy edicts.

This year promises to be another challenging one for the ICT industry, but these trends offer opportunities for savvy suppliers that seek to truly understand their customers’ businesses, and then offer them consultancy and solutions that assist.

Craig Wellman is business development director at Azzurri Communications