More than 50% of manufacturing users will be dissatisfied with the slow rate of IT change in their companies by 2013, according to analyst Gartner – up from 30% this year.
The worsening position will be due to users’ – particularly from the growing ‘digital generation’ – preference for web-based alternatives over the systems their IT organisations provides, says Tom Austin, Gartner vice president and fellow.
“What would appear to make life easier for the IT organisation can needlessly raise user dissatisfaction,” he says. “Strategies to deploy technology uniformly everywhere often don’t work, as some users have to wait too long for new technology, but technological progress comes too rapidly for others.”
Gartner counsels against any IT organisation relying too much on uniform deployment, with Austin suggesting a selective implementation approach instead.
He advises enterprises to segment users and seed new technologies with the most likely innovators and early adopters.
“Most organisations will be better off starting with users who are already pining for the new technologies they believe will improve their ability to do their jobs. If these users are not catered for, as a priority, then they will source the technology they need from outside of the enterprise,” he says.
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