Bosses Behind the Curve on Consumer Technology

The flow of consumer technologies into the enterprise has become a flood, but management is not up to speed on the scale or implications of this trend, according to a report from Unisys and IDC. Even as smartphones and social networks have become commonplace and sometimes integral to the way people work, “Employers don’t seem to have an accurate understanding of what and how many consumer technologies their employees are using in the workplace,” says the Unisys Consumerization of IT Benchmark Study. Networked “iworkers,” it says, are the key to the next wave of productivity, but there exists “a troubling gap between the activities and expectations of new generations of ‘iWorkers and their employers’ readiness to manage, secure, and support this movement – and capitalize on it.” Key areas of concern include “boosting productivity with news ways of connecting and sharing, staying competitive as an innovative company and workplace, and delivering IT flexibly while managing security.”