The common perception is that Shadow IT means people, however,
Shadow IT can be technology that fills a need that enterprise IT is not
currently satisfying. Driven by
innovation most of the technologies began as consumer products, seeking a
broader adoption, they often provided features or capabilities that were
desired by the business user. Some of
the first devices really were convenience devices that digitized an element of
work that was done an analog fashion.
One of the earliest examples of this digitization of the analog world
for the consumer was the personal digital assistant (PDA), most notably the
Palm Pilot. The PDA foreshadowed the
explosion of bring your own devices, as it was carried by users in addition to
their corporate devices. Initially there
was a reluctance by corporate IT to support these devices, but since they were
most effective when they could synchronize with corporate devices, IT
compromised and offered support for the application that did synchronization
but not the device itself. It also
started another trend, devices that were user installable, user configurable
and user supported. IT failed to see this changing dynamic in the work place
and missed an opportunity to drive other service changes. While the PDA provided value they were still
a niche and didn’t gain the wide spread adoption many felt they were
destined. That began to change when the
features of the PDA were combined with the mobile phone and a new type of
device emerged, the smartphone. It posed a new problem for IT, not only did it
offer the same set of applications and data synchronization, but it could also
now be directly connected to the corporate intranet. Making the problem even more extreme for IT
was the significant amount of choice available in the market place. IT could either embrace the choice and drive
the support responsibilities to the user, or like IT is prone to do consolidate
and standardize. IT chose the latter and
begin to treat the smartphone like a corporate asset, this era became known
Blackberry Jail.
It would still be sometime before IT could embrace choice
and BYOD. During this time some good
things did happen to evolve mobility in the workplace. IT figured out how to secure the perimeter,
manage access, content and physical connections through approved devices. IT also began to understand the need to
rethink their applications because of the new way of working that mobility
afforded the user. Also during this time
the options for smartphones exploded, previous market leader Blackberry was
left by the side by feature rich IOS and Android devices that took market
leading positions. Users were not deterred by IT’s reluctance to support these
devices and continued to secure, use and support them, they formed informal
support groups, sharing tips, tricks and methods to use the devices in a
corporate setting. While similar to
crowd sourcing, this was the first real indication that social support could
play an important role in delivering a delighted user experience. It was another indicator that traditional
support settings were changing as the user gained more control over how they
managed their experience. Sensing an
opportunity, a new class of device management companies emerged, mobile device
management offered IT a platform of inclusion for the devices of choice. Not only was IT under pressure, but service
providers also need to adapt to this changing environment. Where traditional managed services focused on
management of the device, and anticipated a one user to one device ratio, it
was becoming more evident that users are using multiple devices. The user context was changing, it wasn’t
support my device, it was support me, my data and applications. Users had already ready adopted choose your own
device, they were willing to support their choice of phone, tablet and even in
many cases laptops, what they needed was ubiquity across those devices,
convenience across those devices. Atos
responded to this challenge, like other aspects of its service business, it
started to transform its workplace business.
It rethought the paradigm and instead of putting the device at the
center, where traditional management models typically focus, it put the user at
the center. The focus was the user work
styles, their data and applications, their personal preferences and how they
wanted to work. Enabling this is the
Digital Hub, an online internet-connected environment, which provides anytime
anywhere access to the user applications and data. Engineering this environment is the digital
mesh which begins to integrate the digital and physical worlds. Finally, the physical world is the devices we
use, the contextual environment we work in.
Driving the realization of the future workplace is the result of the
convergence of forces in the industry. First is the cloud, it provided the secure
framework to deliver to the user their personal and corporate data to any
device, anytime. Once data was there
the applications followed. Not only were
applications evolving and moving to the cloud, many of these applications were
going native on the different devices.
Unleashed from their traditional boundaries, this new wave of
applications became the second force enabling this future workplace. With data
and applications on the end points, the ability to manage and secure the
devices become the third wave. Modern
mobile device management software matured and evolved to unified device
management software, giving IT the ability to provide consistency of management
and application of policy across all the devices in their portfolio.