Tim Crawford

Ok, so you’re selling technology products, solutions or services. You’re looking for the largest buyers and typically look to the enterprise market. You develop the strategy and start going to work. You setup a sales team, check. You setup a channel and partner program, check. Then you start leveraging the relationships, check. But how do you cover the consumer angle? Huh? Yes. Using consumers as a sort of ‘Trojan Horse’ into the enterprise space.

In just the past few years, we’ve seen an uptick in the impact of Consumerization of IT (CoIT) in the enterprise space. The movement shifts the power pendulum away from IT and toward users. BYOD is also making an impact on the movement too. For more info on BYOD vs. CoIT, read here.

In the case of Apple, they’ve attempted entry into the enterprise market a few times. Each time, they’ve been unsuccessful in creating a beachhead and establishing momentum. In the past two years, their attempt to enter the enterprise has largely succeeded. According to Apple’s latest quarterly earnings call, “94% of the Fortune 500 and 75% of the global 500 are testing or deploying iPads”. Others are also in the testing phase (see link below). And that doesn’t take into account the number of devices already in play via the consumer angle. So, is Apple changing their strategy to enter the enterprise environment? Regardless of the specific answer, they are progressing. The move gives Apple an interesting beachhead into the enterprise space…whether they intended to or not.

Interestingly, if consumers are used to using a given technology, they’re more supportive of using it in their professional life too. And that is a good thing for IT organizations from an adoption standpoint. The question is how providers can help enable this process. Apple is a good use-case of a different approach.

The point is: If you’re a provider looking to make a beachhead, there are options to sell into enterprises beyond the traditional approaches. Consumers is one way...but doesn’t fit every company’s solution. If your solution does fit, it might be an interesting model to consider. And this doesn’t cover the other targets open to most providers. But more on that later...