THERE may come a day - and Gartner thinks quite soon - when a company's central IT department is displaced by "power users".

Research firm Gartner is predicting that by 2011 these users, scattered across a company's different business units, will have the clout to over-ride dictates by the IT department against non-sanctioned IT usage, such as plugging thumb drives and iPhones into the office PC, and working on non-company e-mail accounts such as Gmail.

"The impact such a loss of control will have on the perceived power and budget of the central IT department will be substantial," said Whit Andrews, research vice-president at Gartner.

He was speaking at the late February Gartner Asia CIO Summit 2008 in Singapore.

The balance of power is tipping towards business units even as the central IT unit is increasingly seen as irrelevant. "We are already seeing IT spending in many organisations migrate towards the business units, with central IT departments facing substantial reductions in staffing," Whit added.

According to a Gartner study last year, 44 per cent of Singapore companies' IT spending takes place outside the central IT department.

Purchases include mobile devices and telco services.

What's happening in the business world falls under what the research firm terms "consumerisation" of IT.

When employees bring their personal tech experiences and expectations into the workplace, they inevitably challenge the traditional boundaries set by the once monarchial IT department.

Already, it's hard for IT managers to monitor if a thumb drive carries and spills confidential data. Policing gets harder if staff are allowed to use open-market tools like YouTube, Facebook and blogs at work.

Gartner expects consumers to have the greatest impact on technology in the coming decade.

"We have reached a tipping point... Ownership of IT is moving from enterprises toward individuals in an era of personal computing," said Gartner vice-presidents and fellows David Mitchell Smith and Stephen Prentice in a February report.

The way forward is for CIOs and IT heads to be open-minded and adapt. "Extreme individualisation and personal productivity will outweigh one-size- fits-all policies," said Diane Morello, Gartner fellow and vice-president.

"Fit your organisation to the future; don't fight it. Restricting or prohibiting the influx of consumer devices, behaviours and services will drive activities underground."

So, if you can't beat them, join them: CIOs can regain control by taking the lead on some of these projects, like installing a corporate wiki or use Facebook for planning marketing activities.

IT heads can also define and limit employees' access to such technologies based on their job functions.

"For many CIOs the transition we see is a move from focusing on the T (technology) to focusing on the I (information)," said John Roberts, vice-president and chief of research in Gartner Asia Pacific.

"Put simply, the challenge is to increase their business skills and broaden their role to support customer retention and revenue growth."

This article was first published in Digital Life, The Straits Times, on Mar 4, 2008.

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