Last week a Unisys-backed study revealed what a mess the consumerization of IT trend has become. The survey revealed that workers and managers reported very different accounts of how much employees use mobile devices and social tools for work, as the gap widens between employees' use of consumer technologies and the IT department's ability to support them.

According to the study, conducted by IDC, mobility is the catalyst for the consumerization of IT, but IT groups aren't doing enough to prepare for a growing base of mobile customers.

IT executives appear out-of-touch with employees' use of these devices. While 69 percent of workers said they use smart mobile devices for work, executives said only 34 percent are using individually liable devices for work purposes. Just 28 percent of the employers said they believed workers were using social networks to communicate with customers, while 44 percent of employees said they were.

More than two-thirds of the executives polled indicated that their organizations were late or "last to use" when it comes to adopting new technology.

Nick Evans, vice president of innovation strategies, said in an interview that enterprises are struggling in four key areas: Awareness as to how widespread the consumerization trend is within their companies, support for employee-owned devices, creating applications that support customers and security.

From a support point of view, IT executives give their organizations poor scores for supporting consumer devices and applications in the workplace, rating themselves only 2.9 on a 1-to-5 scale.

"The work load is increasing for IT because they have to support a broader mix of devices," Evans said.

Eighty percent of IT respondents say that their department workload is increasing due to consumerization and they reported that nearly 60 percent of the time, when workers encounter a problem with a personal device used for business they will contact the IT department for help rather than troubleshoot the problem themselves or contact the technology provider--like consumers do.

Yes, I will get a number of emails from mobile device management (MDM) and other technology providers saying their solutions can eliminate most of these headaches. I agree that MDM is an important strategy in the consumerization trend, and the study supports this. But IT departments still need to be careful around the costs.

It's clear a company can save on upfront technology costs through this consumerization trend, but an organization must also determine and weigh just how much of those savings will need to be reinvested back into IT to support the growing needs of consumerization. It could actually cost more thanks to new security problems and IT troubleshooting.

At least in the near term, I don't see consumerization helping IT departments that are already resource-strapped. In fact, it could very well require to IT departments to continue with the status quo: Accomplishing more with less. - Lynnette