Firms urged to welcome consumer technology like the iPad or risk alienating staff

Businesses must not ignore the trend towards consumerisation in the workplace as doing so could alienate employees and lead to security risks, according to a panel of IT chiefs and analysts speaking in London on Tuesday.

The growing use of personal devices at work is seeing emerging technologies arise in the consumer market and then flow into the business arena, often without the knowledge of the IT department.

Driving this trend are tablet and smartphone devices. IDC analyst Nicholas McQuire cited figures showing that the sale of smartphones will overtake computers in 2012 as one of the reasons why the trend is unstoppable.

McQuire also listed the growth of Web 2.0 applications, cloud computing and the proliferation of smart devices as the main drivers of consumerisation, noting the trend had started to really pick up since the launch of the iPad.

"We are in a disruptive era at the moment. Employees are now carrying around consumer devices and using them in a more sophisticated way than they use enterprise technologies," he said.

McQuire highlighted three attitudes organisations adopt when managing consumerisation: they give staff a greater say in the devices they use; they go a step further and allow staff to choose any device; or they "bury their heads in the sand".

According to McQuire, many businesses start experimenting with consumer technologies by providing internet access on consumer devices, or with mobile applications, particularly time sheets and business intelligence.

"It's daunting for organisations just trying to understand where to start. First they need to think about whether they will offer staff web apps or native apps, and if it's the latter, what platform do they write to?" he said.

McQuire advised firms that want to provide staff with native business applications for their smartphones to "get close to the end user" so they can understand which applications are most needed, and how they should work.