In the 1960s and 70s the IT department was seen as a secret place ruled by powerful niche experts. They had total control of the department and who could access systems. The PC and its software allowed people to spread their wings. At first, some in the IT department viewed the PC with derision. It certainly wasn't going to threaten their jobs. It wasn't networked. It couldn't connect to the outside world and it had a tiny memory, comedic floppy disks and a screen!

The people who ran the IT department those days came out of a corporate, hierarchical structure that owed much to the way companies had been run since the 1940s. It was only in the late ‘70s and beyond that corporates began to put more emphasis on individual initiative and freedom, and then on a corporate level in the ‘80s, as enormous organizations flattened out their career structures and had to change dramatically to survive.

Then, along came a company that created a great business selling cloud-based sales force automation software directly to business executives and thereby bypassing the IT department. This was only five years ago, but the world had already moved forward.

As a result of outsourcing, corporate reliance on management gurus such as W. Edwards Deming, the use of lean management techniques and the wholesale use of business process engineering, the 1990s saw corporates introducing additional part-time and contract staff and replacing routine work with automated software offshore workers and temporary labor.


This has resulted in corporate workers who very often work from home using their own PCs, smart phones, laptops and tablet computers with their own individual likes and desires for hardware and software as well as the difficult task of IT departments being able to impose control over whatever hardware or software is used.

The very flexibility that corporate management demanded of its workforce has bounced back as the same workforce demanded flexible methods of working. BYOD is, in fact, just the beginning of a process that will require IT departments to work closely with staff regarding the choice of tools that they use.

The increase of workers adopting social media tools outside of work has also changed the game forever. Social media was bound to have an effect on the enterprise; therefore careful analysis of the rise of social media should have alerted executives to its growth and its likely effects upon the enterprise.

If an enterprise did not see BYOD coming it had better take a look at what else might be coming because it needs to be prepared in identifying emerging trends instead of being surprised when they become reality.