New management styles will emerge from IT consumerisation, says Gartner

CIOs must be flexible and adaptable in their management strategies in order to cope with the primary trend of consumerisation, according to Gartner.

"CIOs are facing mass-mobility, and it is expected to grow rapidly," said Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner.

The research firm has laid out four possible management styles that will develop due to different approaches taken by different groups of staff.

The first is control-oriented, whereby corporate IT control and support every aspect of a device and its applications to ensure quality of service, security, support and cost.

The second style, choice-oriented, will focus on user satisfaction, allowing the user a choice of device.

Innovation-oriented management is when users are empowered by management to have more control, especially in areas where IT does not have much influence.

Gartner says that the control would be policy-oriented as opposed to technology-oriented and that the business would not abandon responsibility for critical issues.

Finally, there is the hands-off approach, which Gartner says will give businesses a minimum level of responsibility for mobile devices.

This would include approaches such as bring your own device (BYO) to work and allows companies to exert control either in the cloud, through applications, or by policies. IT would have little or no support responsibility for these devices.

Nick Jones, Gartner vice president and analyst, believes that CIOs need to adapt their approach to BYO as soon as possible, as it is becoming a necessity in the enterprise.

"CIOs need to explore new ways to provide, fund and manage mobile devices to allow employees more choice and support BYO programmes," said Jones.

"Regardless of your current approach, the reality is that consumerisation is here to stay and will have an enormous impact on the management of corporate mobility for many years to come," added Milanesi.