IW 500 Lessons: Endless Projects To Consumerization Myths
Lessons on analytics, e-commerce, clouds, mobile and more from the InformationWeek 500 companies.
Confession of a tech junkie: Some of the most fun I have each year is reading the essays companies submit for the InformationWeek 500 . (OK, make that the most fun at work .) These essays let me peek inside the heads of hundreds of IT leaders and see how they think they're changing the world.
I can't capture all that energy and insight here, but allow me to offer eight takeaways from those essays, as well as the IW 500 profiles written by my colleagues.
1. Consumerization of IT?
Not quite. It's less "kiss off IT ... I can go buy a tablet and look at me go!" and more "hey, IT buddy, I actually need some apps on this tablet that apply to what we do at this company, so could you help me?" Dish Network Service, the satellite TV company, provides a typical example of the tablet and smartphone innovation we saw this year. Dish gave 15,000 field technicians Samsung Galaxy Note "phablets" on which they do all their work. Each device replaces three: a tablet PC, push-to-talk phone and in-vehicle GPS. The consumerization payoff comes from having a dramatically cheaper tech platform (several million dollars in savings the past year, the company says) and doing less training because the interface is familiar and easy to use.
2. E-commerce projects never end.
Penske Truck Leasing was leaving money on the table by not going directly to consumers to sell its trucks coming off lease and instead relying entirely on wholesalers. But going straight to buyers meant it needed a site as slick as any consumer e-commerce site, more Carmax.com than B-to-B catalog.
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