What’s the deal with the “consumerization of IT”?

It always brightens our day to hear about the reasons people bring Dropbox into their workplace. Recently, digital ad agency Huge talked about moving to Dropbox for Business to help team members across the world work together more efficiently. And since many team members already relied on Dropbox in their personal lives, getting the company up and running on Dropbox for Business was a snap.

This is part of a larger trend, sometimes referred to as the “consumerization of IT,” and it’s a hot topic that generates quite a bit of discussion. Industry analysts like Forrester’s Ted Schadler have talked about how giving employees choice drives innovation. Publications like CITEworld have argued the many reasons why consumerization is not a fad. And innovative companies like Huge are increasingly thinking about how to incorporate the benefits of consumer technology into their businesses.

The way we see it, this trend is good news all around. Employees are happier using products they’ve chosen that genuinely make their jobs easier. IT gets to be a hero — and spends less time on things like implementation, training, and administration. And it’s good for businesses that directly benefit from more productivity and efficiency overall.

With the annual CITE Conference and Expo coming up next week, there’s sure to be a fresh wave of conversation around the ways in which innovation in the consumer space is transforming how companies do business. If you’re attending the conference, be sure to visit the Dropboxers at Booth #20, and listen to Ilya Fushman, business product lead, who’ll be speaking on the Social, Collaborative Enterprise track (Monday, June 3, 2013 @ 4:05pm). Come join us!