Tablet Takeover: How is IT Responding?

Tablet Takeover: How is IT Responding?

Posted by Nathan Clevenger on Sep 12, 2011 10:33:13 AM

The adoption rate of tablets in the enterprise continues to soar — and we’re not talking about consumers simply bringing iPads into work; we’re talking about a full-scale enterprise-supported tablet revolution. As of June, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer confirmed that more than 85 percent of the Fortune 500 are deploying or testing iPads within their enterprises.

As I developed the book,  iPad in the Enterprise: Developing and Deploying Business Applications(Wiley, 2011),  I interviewed and received feedback regarding iPads from dozens of technology authors, industry analysts, enterprise software executives, Fortune 1000 CIOs and other visionaries of enterprise IT.

Many of these thought leaders spoke about how the consumerization of IT has forced CIOs and technology managers to evaluate tablets from the business perspective. Employees, with the ability to be mobile 24/7 in their personal lives, are demanding similar abilities at work — they want to be connected everywhere, and they want real-time business services on a device more functional than a smartphone and more convenient than a laptop.

To find out how various industry sectors, such as medical device, consumer technology, financial services and others have responded, I went directly to executives and IT leaders at some of the top businesses in the country.

Unstoppable Trends

Frank Slootman, the former CEO at Data Domain and now Executive Chairman of the Backup Recovery Systems Division at EMC, pointed out that consumer technology has been building for business users over many years: “Consumerization of IT is not a new phenomenon,” he said. “As far back as the mid-1980s, the very first Macs and [Apple] LaserWriters were ushered into departments of the enterprise completely against the tightly locked-down policies of the IT departments, which refused to support them. It is an unstoppable, grass-roots dynamic under way for many decades now. I am sure we ain’t seen nothing yet.”

Donald Ferguson, Executive VP and CTO at CA Technologies, agrees, saying: “The consumerization of IT has been gradually occurring for years. The iPhone, followed by the iPad, has made ‘consumerized’ IT the new normal. Enterprises can either enable and support iPhone, iPad and new consumer devices, or employees will go around IT.”

Both individuals stressed that IT has a decision to make — either figure out how to work with mobile technologies, or get out of the way. But ultimately, it’s up to the organization — and not just IT — to decide the strategy.

Rapid-fire Acceptance at Accenture

Of everyone I spoke with, Frank Modruson, CIO of Accenture, had the most vivid explanation of how Accenture embraced mobile technologies:

“The day the iPad was introduced we had discussions about adding them into our environment; 24 hours later, we had 500 devices accessing emails. People expect personal devices — iPads, iPhones and the like — to be usable at work. They want to be more productive, they want do a better job, and there’s an expectation that they’ll be able to integrate consumer devices with enterprise applications. It’s a sensible and reasonable expectation, and we feel it’s imperative to oblige them. Indeed, we see it as an opportunity. CIOs who resist will eventually be forced to change. CIOs should not be asking if

they can take advantage of the devices, they should be asking how they can take advantage.

The fact that Accenture could go from zero to 500 devices overnight is astounding. It represents an incredibly rapid rate of change for CIOs who have traditionally embraced stability. Modruson’s approach also shows that traditional enterprises can look on new technology as an opportunity — rather than a threat — to build a stronger business and empower employees.

Medical and Financial Services Lead the Way

It’s not unusual to expect technology companies to be at the head of the adoption curve, but other industries are right behind them, and even surpassing tablet use rates. A poll of more than 5,000 doctors conducted by the Physicians Consulting Network recently indicated that 27 percent of primary care and specialty physicians have an iPad or similar device — a rate that is five times higher than the general population. Combined with the growing number of applications for medical use — including patient check-in, care and health records, and remote scanning and viewing of medical files, X-rays and images — the tablet has become a way for medical centers to make efficient use of physician time, cut administrative costs and maintain better electronic records.

Good Technologies recently published its Q2 2011 Data Report, indicating that financial services continued to see the highest level of iPad activation, accounting for nearly half of net iPad activations by vertical industry (46%) — more than tripling the amount of activation in any other industry.

Need more proof? Just this month, BMW Financial Services partnered with AutoNation to pilot a program that allows auto dealers to line up financing for customers from an iPad, giving dealers an easier and more effective way to get approval on the spot. By using the program, a dealer can continue to show the car to the customer and get financing without having to leave the showroom. This saves time, creates a higher level of comfort for shoppers and potentially increases the likelihood of a sale.

The iPad is an incredibly disruptive technology; there is no debate about that. Looking forward, other disruptive technologies, driven by user demand, will no doubt arise and challenge the status quo of the enterprise as well.

Four Action Items

To leverage everything the iPad has to offer for the enterprise, remember these four important lessons about mobile implementation overall:

1. Get IT, marketing and operations on board early in the process. Agree on a mobile strategy together and make it happen
2. Listen to and learn from your employees: they know how mobile technologies can help them be better salespeople and marketers. Engage employees in the process of creating the application road map.
3. Think about how customers interact with your employees — how can mobile interactions provide more value, speed or quality of service? This will be key in developing the right business apps.
4. Put the proper mobile platform in place to create a scalable infrastructure that is useful, flexible and secure.

So how are you strategically harnessing the consumerization trend for positive impact on your business? Feel free to chime in to the conversation by posting comments here. I will answer all the questions that I can.

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Nathan Clevenger has been developing mobile software for more than 12 years and is the author ofiPad in the Enterprise: Developing and Deploying Business Applications, a book designed to help CIOs and IT managers define and implement effective mobile strategies and platforms.

In addition to being Enterprise Editor for iPhone Life magazine, Nathan is Chief Software Architect atITR Mobility, a management and IT consulting firm, where he works with companies to develop mobile strategies and enterprise architectures. Clients have included: 3M, Ameriprise Financial, Best Buy, Boston Scientific, Ecolab, General Mills, Medtronic, St. Jude Medical, Target, Thomson Reuters, UnitedHealth Group and Wells Fargo. He regularly speaks at industry events and says he is “extremely passionate about the unrealized potential for mobile technology within the enterprise.”