The age of IT consumerization is upon us: employees are not only bringing their smartphones and tablet devices to work — they are using them at work, both for personal and work use. This often involves connecting unsecured platforms to vital business services, which is simultaneously exciting and scary.
The consumerization of information technology blends the personal and business use of these devices, allowing employees to work anywhere, anytime. This sounds like a great arrangement for business, but the issues go beyond “bring your own device” (BYOD) policies, third-party applications and social networks: it is forcing a need to forge and foster new relationships between the IT team and other business units, employees and customers. It is indeed vital that CIOs lock in a solid, well-crafted BYOD policy and continue to monitor the flow of traffic and information travelling through the network – but the CIO should be even more concerned about crafting a strategy which takes full advantage of these exciting developments without endangering the corporate information assets.