Shadow IT: The new competitor

"Shadow IT is the proliferation of information technology (IT) that remains largely unknown and unseen by a company’s business IT department, which is concerning from both a security and a management perspective."

"When employees bypass IT and use their own, unsanctioned technology, we call it “shadow IT.” The cloud makes this really easy: all you need is a browser or a mobile device and you can connect to a virtually endless number of cloud apps for collaboration, file sharing, note taking, presentation building and just about every other tool you could ever want. The cost is minimal or even free. Who could resist?"

These 2 quotes from David Metcalfe define what shadow IT is.

What does this mean for us, external consultants?

Usually we try to develop a trust relationship with our customers' business areas and to achieve a perpetual honeymoon with the customers' IT department. We have to follow their rules and use the platforms they have chosen probably decades ago.

We deliver a product in X time and most probably with a not so appealing UI, since we were using IT’s approved platforms. Then, comes shadow IT and produces the same application in 1/3 X time and probably with a more appealing interface. Now, we have new a competitor: shadow IT.

Gartner is predicting that by 2016 35 percent of IT expenditure will go toward shadow IT.

The case for shadow IT is that it drives innovation and removes boundaries. The dark side is that it is uncontrolled, unmanaged and potentially not secure enough.

One area where us, external consultants, can contribute to IT departments is in the creation of change and configuration management for the shadow IT applications. By defining simple rules and processes we can help to avoid detrimental outages or security breaches.

For example, if the person from shadow IT decides to take a sabbatical year, we don’t want the business to become unable to do use their trendy forecast application.

Have you started a conversation about shadow IT with your customer?