Managing the User with Increased Influence

In a significant shift, business users are now selecting their own front-end analytics tools and procuring them with their own budgets, as revealed by Howard Dresner's latest Wisdom of Crowds survey of BI users. This trend marks a departure from the traditional IT-led BI projects.

The increasing autonomy of employees over technology choices is challenging the traditional role of the IT department. As more businesses embrace the 'bring your own device' (BYOD) trend, the idea of a hermetically sealed and controlled technology environment by the IT department is becoming outdated.

The IT department is responding by seeking to shift its skill set from systems administration and support to communication, collaboration, and engagement with the business. They are also attempting to impress upon business units the need to develop their own data governance capabilities to prevent poorly maintained data from producing inaccurate analyses.

The vibrant online marketplace for applications allows workers and business units to choose and deploy their own applications like never before. However, this poses challenges for central control over things like identity and access management, licence control, and data visibility.

One solution to the problem of decentralized SaaS application purchasing is the concept of a 'cloud broker'. This is an organization that departments must buy cloud services and SaaS applications through, applying identity management rules, monitoring usage, and maximizing buying power.

The IT department may also seek novel, technological methods to impose data governance and quality processes across the disparate and decentralized software ecosystem within the enterprise. They may attempt to persuade business users to hook their self-selected BI systems into the enterprise data warehouse for data governance and process.

The use of employee-owned devices for work purposes presents new technical and HR challenges. Around 40% of UK workers use a personal smartphone or tablet to access corporate data, according to a survey by Ovum in late 2012. There are concerns about the security of corporate data on these devices, leading to new approaches like designing systems to make employees appreciate the value and risk associated with various kinds of company data.

Organizations adopting MDM to support BYOD have reported positive experiences, allowing them to give employees freedom to choose devices while preserving IT security. However, much of the BYOD activity is unmanaged, with only half of the UK workers who use personal devices having signed a policy for data protection and device security.

The UK government's G-Cloud procurement framework allows government departments to buy cloud services from security-checked and approved suppliers, reducing their own checks and balances. This framework has been instrumental in facilitating cloud adoption within the public sector.

In conclusion, the landscape of IT and business is undergoing a significant transformation. The autonomy of employees, the BYOD trend, and cloud adoption are reshaping the traditional role of the IT department. The challenge for IT departments is to adapt and evolve to protect the organization's long-term information interests while enabling business agility.