Evolution of IT in the cloud era
According to Stratecast, employees develop a sense of comfort when allowed to select their own applications. Similar to the BYOD phenomenon, we are now seeing an invasion of BYOA - bring your own application. The benefits for users are fairly clear: ease of access from any browser, ease of maintenance (ie none), relatively low cost, quick deployment, and of course, familiarity with an application that allows them to just get on with the job.
However, some 35 percent of all SaaS applications in operation are likely to have been bought and used without IT oversight. The dangers are well known. They include first and foremost security, as such services may not be enterprise-grade in their use of encryption - and none of them can operate without using company data, leading to potential leakage. There are hidden costs too, when departments buy individually instead of centrally.
Responding to shadow IT
This is not a bandwagon in front of which any IT leader cares or indeed is likely to step. Instead of blocking it, shadow IT needs to be managed.
So how to get it right?
In short, the company needs to develop policies, akin to those governing BYOD, that balance flexibility with control, allowing employees to do the job while minimising risk to the company.
Here are some key tips: