The more that we use our smartphones and tablets for everyday work activities, and the more untethered we become from our desktops, the more interested we are becoming in enabling truly efficient mobile working. And because we are also someone else's customers, we understand the need for companies to make it easier to engage with us. In many organisations, employees from across all functions – not only sales and field workers – are volunteering ideas to their IT colleagues for new enterprise mobility applications and or new mobile services their customers can use.
To judge from some recent research on mobile innovation we've conducted, however, IT doesn't seem to be listening. (The report, published yesterday, can be found here.) More than half of business people we surveyed, including a large portion from the IT function itself, told us that IT is resistant to ideas for new mobile tools and services originating from outside the department.
This finding seems to reinforce the "not invented here" reputation that IT departments the world over have been burdened with – a well-earned reputation over the years, many would say. But why should that continue to be the case when the average IT professional is certainly no less enamoured of his or her mobile gadgets and apps than any other employee, and ought to be no less open to new ideas for improving their own ability to work on the move, away from the desk? Institutional pressures no doubt play a role in building resistance to ideas from outside. After all, there's little risk for non-IT employees in dabbling with things outside their main areas of responsibility, whereas the IT professional is held accountable for anything that goes wrong with enterprise technology.
Fortunately, however, things seem to be changing. Although the "resistance to change" accusation remains the majority view among our research sample, many of the same individuals believe IT is much more collaborative with other functions in developing mobile services than it was two years ago. Indeed, under pressure from the executive suite to integrate more closely with the business, many IT departments are keen to show that they are listening to their colleagues' ideas. When they also begin acting on the best of those ideas, organisations and their technology professionals may find that they've turned a corner.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited (EIU) or any other member of The Economist Group. The Economist Group (including the EIU) cannot accept any responsibility or liability for reliance by any person on this article or any of the information, opinions or conclusions set out in the article.
