Consumerisation driving four mobile management styles, says Gartner

22 Nov 2011

It’s time for IT teams to pick their strategy for managing employee-owned mobile devices, because consumerisation is already having a major impact on corporate mobility.

Consumerisation is here to stay. But how ready is your IT team to manage, support and perhaps even fund employee-selected smartphones and tablet computers? Will it emphasis control or choice? Limited device support for users or complete autonomy?

This tricky issue was addressed by Gartner analysts Carolina Milanesi and Nick Jones at the company’s recent customer conference in Barcelona. As the lines blur between our working and personal lives, they pointed out, there is more and more crossover between the technologies we use in and outside of the workplace.

Employees now behave more like consumers, demanding a wider choice of devices and using consumer devices and applications downloaded from online app stores for business uses, they say.

In response, most IT teams will need to formulate a strategy for mobile device management. Broadly speaking, Milanesi and Jones believe these management styles will fall into four broad categories:

1. Control-oriented

Primary goal: To guarantee quality of service, security, support and cost. In this approach, all aspects of devices, mobile-service contracts and applications are strictly controlled and supported by corporate IT. In most cases, employees are expected to use only company-approved and owned devices for work purposes.

2. Choice-oriented

Primary goal: User satisfaction, typically in cases where users demands a greater choice of devices but have relatively undemanding application and service needs. Undemanding needs are a “necessary consequence” of greater choice, because it’s usually prohibitively expensive to support complex requirements on a wide range of platforms, according to Gartner’s analysts. “User satisfaction cannot imply excessive risk, so the business won’t abandon all management responsibility, but will instead exert lightweight control over devices and the service portfolio, often by limiting the range of services provided and choosing inherently safe architectures, such as a thin client,” they write. Such control tends to be more in the cloud than on the device and support is typically much more limited than in the control-oriented regime.

3. Innovation

Primary goal: To empower users who want substantial autonomy and are often in roles over which IT has little or no control. Here, users want to experiment with applications and services and to develop new techniques and processes. They are in charge, and no reasonable device, application or service request can be refused. The IT organisation won't abandon responsibility for critical issues such as data privacy and corporate risk; however, the controls will likely be more policy-oriented than technology-oriented. Typical users are independent, often technically sophisticated, and may not want support (even where it can be provided), but may accept advice and training.

4. Hands-off

Primary goal: To take the minimum level of responsibility for mobile devices and services, typically by not providing them. “This regime is not about avoiding responsibility, but finding approaches that mean it’s not necessary to take responsibility,” according to Gartner’s analysts.  It includes concepts such as employee-owned devices and BYO (Bring Your Own) IT. In these scenarios, IT has little or no support responsibility for devices and many relinquish responsibility for many services (for example, by requiring users to provide their own mobile email or by adopting hosted services.) Any controls that are necessary will be applied in the cloud, in applications or by policies.

“CIOs must be ready for the BYO programmes sooner than they realise,” said Nick Jones. “BYO is a principle that most organisations will adopt and they must prepare for this change.”

At the same time, global businesses should be prepared to support at least three smartphone platforms by 2012, and some will expect to support four or even five. The decision will vary, depending on geography and whether the applications are business to employee (B2E) or business to consumer (B2C) apps.

“Regardless of your current approach, the reality is that consumerisation is here to stay and will have an enormous impact on the management of corporate mobility for many years to come,” said Milanesi.