The Balancing Act Between IT Consumerisation And Innovation

CIOs perpetually fight a tough battle between the new normal of decreasing IT budgets and increasing technology requirements. Further complicating this scenario is the consumerisation of IT drawing control out of the hands of the IT centres and placing it into the hands of the business user. Choosing this as the topic of debate and deliberation for the panel discussion at the CIO Masters 2013 Awards ceremony, moderator for the discussion Nagaraj G.N., Business Technology Leader flagged off the conversation with the statement, “Giving business users power over the technology they use is great. But that does not form the stable foundation for business.”

Sitting L to R: John Brand, Manish Bahl, Nagaraj G.N., Arun Gupta, Ashok Wahi

Enterprises are at an inflection point, moving away from legacy driven systems to systems of engagement. Manish Bahl, VP & Country Manager – India, Forrester Research said, “More than 90 percent of CIOs believe that increased (internal) customer experience is the biggest battle to be won.” But, these systems of engagement come with their own set of challenges. “Business processes were designed for transactions, not engagement. New strategies have to be developed around re-designing IT infrastructure architecture to keep pace with emerging needs and technologies,” continued Manish. Enterprises aren’t re-designing as a key strategy but incorporating and layering new technology on top. “For example, mobility is becoming an inevitable IT need but despite that efforts are limited to BYOD and mobility services to the top management,” added Nagaraj.

John Brand, Vice President & Principal Analyst drew attention to the fact that the gap between the leaders in IT innovation and the others is widening. “Enterprises face challenges because the IT infrastructure present internally is never a forefront thought when pursuing new ones,” he explained. This flaw leads enterprises to a dead end when it comes to integration because they are only building complexity into the IT landscape but avoid structuring and architecturing. “In that case, India has the advantage of not having many prevalent legacy systems since it leap-frogged technology and has kept pace,” continued Brand.

Moderating this point Nagaraj said, “I don’t think legacy is solely responsible for the diminishing control of IT over the enterprise but globalisation of IT services is working in the background as well.” Arun Gupta, CIO, Cipla refuted, “Majority of CIOs use an ERP system and the use of consumerised technology is a hype that has been created by consultants and analysts.” Elaborating further he explained that every organisation has three types of workers - transactional, information/knowledge workers who analyse information and consumer-facing workers. All have different IT needs and methods of using that technology. “We need to acknowledge that the requirement and consumerisation of IT is contextual,” said Gupta.

Architectures have evolved to suit more dynamic and resilient business scenarios. IT has to live up to these conditions of service as outsourcing options to the business are not limited. Continuing this string of thought Ashok Wahi, Distinguished Professor of Information Systems, Jaypee Business School said that IT has to become adaptable in the more Darwinian way, “Earlier CIOs were very possessive of their IT but this was when IT was limited majorly to transactional systems. The business consumer has changed considerably now and business is conducted at the near time reaction of the customer if not real time.” Adding to this, Nagaraj pointed out that IT has to have a flavour for every user.

Hybrid cultures are the way to go. But to facilitate this do enterprises endorse freethinking and innovation without an agenda? Replying to this, Gupta from Cipla noted, “Earlier this happened surreptitiously while now, it has been facilitated openly. Innovation cannot be inhibited with an imposed structure. It is just a cultural mind shift for digital immigrants but is the norm when it comes to the younger business user.” Agreeing with Gupta, Wahi said, “Innovation is not a time and effort dedicated exercise anymore but is imbibed in the IT members mindset.” He drew attention to the point that smartphones had been a game changer for IT. Without these, business could not make these demands of connectivity and comsumerised IT.

Considering the comments of his fellow panellists, Brand from Forrester drew on the conclusion that it is hard to define innovation, “R & D was isolated but it is not anymore. The question of ideating without an agenda is a difficult one that many enterprises are tackling. The best bet they have is to leverage the customers into that ideation process and develop an innovation filter where good ideas are stored to be referenced for later issues even if they don’t solve current ones.”