The Consumerisation of IT – why organisational change is a must if businesses want to remain competitive

The cultural impact of the consumerisation of IT extends to differing aspects of our lives so we asked Professor Hulme, Lead Director at the Social Furtures Observatory, to write this short blog and video to provide his perspective

The Consumerisation of IT – why organisational change is a must if businesses want to remain competitive

Professor Michael Hulme, Director of Social Futures Observatory and Professor, Lancaster University

The Consumerisation of IT is not just a passing trend.  Instead, it is a driver for a fundamental change in the way that organisations will need to structure themselves going forwards.  We must recognise that today’s employee comes into the workplace as being much more than just a physical entity, more than just a physical resource.  In the past, employees were regarded as ‘units’ within a pre-ordered structural system, a top down authority controlled machine, indeed we even used the language of machines, such as ‘re-engineering’ to describe processes. Individuals had access to computing power, such as PCs, but this access to information was controlled and one physically went to pre-defined spaces to enable it.

Today in our daily lives data and processing come to the individual, presented and interacted with in the formats that best suit each of us as individuals. This is changing the balance of the types of technology that we use in the workplace.  Increasingly we expect to use devices that are capable of doing many different things on one device, organising information as best suits each of us, can be held close to us and are at least as equally mobile. These combine to drive new notions of authority and control, replacing old rigid structures with a much more collaborative, fluid and creative form of participation. This is the essence of the Consumerisation of technology in the workplace. 

The workplace must respond to this.  The employee of the future will be an individual who has grown up surrounded by the digital world and who won’t wait to have to ‘go’ to a device.  They expect the information and all their work tools to be present with them as they move through the organisation.  Organisations are going to have to meet this more informal, more highly–person centric requirement in the future in order to be commercially successful as it will be key to them ensuring  they are able to attract and hire the best talent.  To be clear, organisations that operate in rigid, controlled structures that have dominated much of the 20th century and into the 21st century are going to be seriously endangered. 

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