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Over the past several decades, IT has moved from a data-center model, where most information and data was inside the enterprise, to the Internet, where there’s more information outside the four walls of the enterprise than within it. More recently, the pervasiveness of mobility, social media, and bring your own device (BYOD) and cloud (BYOC) are bringing about both technical and cultural changes that are profoundly changing enterprise IT and computing.
Much like the Internet in the 1990s, the greatest impact to enterprise IT is coming from the personal adoption of mobility that is assimilating into the workplace. The onslaught of BYOD in combination with cloud services is shaping corporate change. In its narrowest definition, BYOC is where employees save their personal and work-related data and files in the cloud. It is said that the ancient Vikings were successful because they were the first to see water as a highway and not merely as a defensive barrier. With a comparable mindset, IT must invert the way we view BYOD and BYOC.
At West, IT is examining the best ways to enable the use of these devices as we support and enable the goals of our global supply chain initiative: increased asset utilization; improved customer service; reduction of risk; and a tax-efficient supply chain. Next month, I will present some of the downstream implications that we are considering to protect information assets as we seek the best ways to enable personal mobility and cloud service while ensuring the security and privacy of data and intellectual property.
More and more information is being stored in the cloud, and the number of personal cloud users is on the rise with no signs of slowing down. Social media sites such as Facebook in the U.S. and Sina Webo in China are sites where everyone meets and where data is being stored permanently. Today, we seldom exchange photos via email or carry USB sticks for storing documents. Instead, we trust the cloud as our preferred place to meet and exchange information.
With the explosive growth in social media, mobile devices, cloud computing and access to data both internal and external to West (now referred to as Big Data), West IT has been working to ensure that we are able to leverage these transformational trends. In 2012, we updated our IT strategy to allow us to be part of the revolution while making it feel more like an evolution. The initial phase began with investments in cloud technologies – both private and public – to drive down IT operating costs and to enable us to take advantage of software enhancements made by our strategic partners.
Beyond the challenges of ensuring that data privacy laws are observed across the globe, West IT is faced with the need to safeguard intellectual property, trade secrets, and confidential company and employee data while ensuring that we can serve our global customers. This is becoming increasingly more complex with the rapid advances in mobility and cloud computing. At West, IT is evaluating the best way to enable our employees to take advantage of these rapid advances in technology while still ensuring protection for confidential company information.
Mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets are transforming the way we communicate and collaborate like never before. The convenience, ease of use, technical capabilities and mind-boggling array of apps have been pivotal to increasing productivity and customer and employee engagement. Yet mobility comes with some caveats, such as the need to secure confidential customer and financial data. This challenge has gained prominence this year due, in part, to the headline-grabbing news of hackers across the globe breaking into supposedly secure corporate and government databases.
Have you ever wanted to fly among the clouds? To rapidly deploy apps or manage IT services with greater flexibility? To support real-time analytics across all types of data from email to ERP? West IT is leveraging cloud computing to help realize those goals. West began its journey to the cloud several years ago by looking first at cloud service offerings for all new IT services. Such services allow IT to satisfy the strategic goal of cost-effectively enabling high availability of IT services in a more mobile and globally competitive world.
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