Signs of the Consumerized Times: Rise of the Citizen Developer

The Consumerization of IT is upon us, which means non-technical business users—or citizen developers—are influencing, or even developing, the technologies used to run businesses. In fact Gartner predicts that “citizen developers” will develop 25 percent of all enterprise software by 2014.

It’s not surprising that end users are creating their own business applications. For starters, it’s easier than ever. Building business software used to require formal software coding experience. Today, a host of build-it-yourself database or application platforms make it drag-and-drop easy. But more importantly, business-user expectations are changing. In a world where people can buy or download just about anything online “right now”, business people expect and demand immediate solutions to their challenges. Waiting weeks or months for IT to develop and deploy a solution simply doesn’t cut it any longer. More and more, business people are simply bypassing IT to find their own solutions.

And while most people would agree that empowering business people to solve their own work challenges is a good thing, there are inherent risks. This is especially true as business users attempt to solve more complex technical problems themselves. In fact, according to Ian Finley, research vice president at Gartner, citizen developers are already moving awayfrom building simple business applications and towards trying their hand at developing complex departmental, enterprise or public applications.

To handle the flux in citizen developers and to limit data security exposures, IT leaders should work with these citizen developers to create the safest application development environment possible. With extra, proactive support and governance on the front end, citizen developers can contribute powerful business applications that give your company a competitive advantage. Proactive support can also free up some of IT leader’s valuable time, allowing them to offload department-level projects and focusing more on the larger, enterprise-wide projects.

For example, many citizen developers and IT departments use the TrackVia solution as their primary internal application platform. Instead of using software or a range of Software-as-a-Service solutions, IT simply provides their business users (and citizen developers) with a centralized, fast and easy way to build their own department databases and applications. By centralizing these applications in one place, it becomes easier for IT to maintain security oversight and control while still providing guidance and directions to its business users.

In today’s mission critical facilities and enterprise businesses, fostering citizen developers can ensure you meet needs for increased efficiency. By offloading department-level requests to technical customer applications, you empower your end users to play a vital role within your organization, all while growing your business. As a tool to support the citizen developer, TrackVia empowers thousands of consumers to bring their ideas, preferences and developed applications into the workplace—making the workplace more efficient and secure.

Charles Var Bio:

After 15 years working in Silicon Valley for the likes of Intuit, Symantec, and HP, Charles headed east in 2008 to lead marketing and communications for Denver-based MX Logic. Following MX Logic’s acquisition by McAfee in 2009, Charles directed strategic marketing for the McAfee Content and Cloud Security division, raising awareness and demand for the company’s portfolio of Cloud-based email and web security solutions.  His experience in Internet- or Cloud-based business solutions spans back to 2000 when he helped launch several of Intuit’s early online solutions, including QuickBase and QuickBooks Online. Charles earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications and Journalism from Chapman University. Charles currently leads all marketing initiatives for TrackVia.

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