Several executives mentioned the value to the organization of employees using the technology to productively link to resources while outside enterprise boundaries and normal working hours. Others mentioned the opportunity to enrich the interaction with customers—such as a pharmaceutical representative using a tablet computer and an interactive app or short video in a dialogue with a busy physician. The most commonly discussed benefits, however, related to employee satisfaction. Many interviewees recognized the changing characteristics of the generation of employees now entering the work-force, particularly their high comfort levels with, and expectations about, social networking and consumer technologies. IT consumerization was seen as a valuable tool in attracting and harnessing these new hires. Current employees, on the other hand, were perceived as valuing the independence and even the enjoyment that came from being able to choose their own tools as well as the convenience of working with up-to-date technology that paralleled what they used outside of work and better suited the characteristics of their job.

Distinctive usage Patterns

While adopting consumer technologies for work purposes is a worldwide phenomenon, it is by no means a uniform one. Our subsequent survey of 4,097 full-time employees from large organizations in 16 different countries reveals the adoption of consumer tools and applications in the workplace is more prevalent in emerging markets than in mature markets. Brazil, China, India, and Mexico, for instance, show disproportionately higher consumer IT utilization in the workplace (see Table 1). Even when controlling for the type and number of devices employees receive from their employer (desktops, laptops, smartphones, tablet PCs), employees in those nations are twice as likely to use a consumer technology in the workplace as their counterparts in mature economies, such as Germany or France, whose usage rates are below 10%.

What explains these differences in
consumer IT usage patterns? One pos-
sibility is that many people in emerg-
ing-market countries have leapfrogged
earlier forms of communication tech-
nology, particularly landline phones
and personal computers. Another is
that rising income levels of a wide
middle class and mass-market pric-
ing in emerging markets have made
consumer technologies particularly af-
fordable and appealing tools in these
areas—for home and work. Consumer
IT is small, cheap, modular, and ready
to go. Not surprisingly, adoption rates
of consumer IT in emerging econo-
mies are accelerating. While the over-
all usage of consumer technologies is
increasing at an average of 5% for de-
vices and 11% for applications around
the globe, the fastest uptake in the
near future, according to our study,
will be in China (16% increase forecast-
ed for devices; 35% for applications)
and Mexico (11% forecasted increase
for devices; 29% for applications, see
Table 1). The size of the population
using consumer technology is already
much bigger in emerging markets and
is growing much faster than in mature
markets. In addition to these develop-
ments, differences in attitudes regard-
ing the value of consumer IT in the
workplace may shed further light on
the usage patterns we found.

 

Contrasting attitudes Employees perceived the value of consumer IT in the workplace similar to those mentioned by our executives

table 1. Consumer it use in workplaces around the globe.

Consumer it devices
Percentage of employees
that use their own
consumer it devices
for work often
or very often
Percentage of employees
that plan to use
their own consumer
it devices for work
more often from now on

Australia 21% 19% ø Brazil 31% 37% ö Canada 20% 19% ø China 40% 56% ö France 8% 15% ö germany 9% 7% ø india 41% 48% ö italy 24% 30% ö Japan 10% 12% ö Mexico 39% 50% ö scandinavia 9% 12% ö singapore 34% 34% ð south Korea 34% 46% ö spain 16% 24% ö United Kingdom 16% 17% ö United states 21% 20% ø sample Average 23% 28% ö note: Bold typeface marks top three for each category

Consumer it applications Percentage of employees that plan to use consumer it applications for work purposes more often from now on

18% 18% ð 29% 43% ö 17% 24% ö 31% 67% ö 9% 15% ö 8% 11% ö 40% 56% ö 24% 32% ö 6% 11% ö 30% 59% ö 8% 12% ö 28% 37% ö 25% 48% ö 15% 29% ö 11% 18% ö 18% 20% ö 20% 31% ö