Last week I was in London and Amsterdam, where I had a fantastic time meeting with customers and cloud partners.
During the conversations I had with customers and partners, shadow IT was continuously recognized as a challenge. However, most were not sure of how, or if, they should take actual action. Why? Some IT managers didn’t think it was their problem, but instead something procurement or the CISO should deal with. In addition, some just didn’t have the resources to address the challenge and discover what was truly going on in their organizations.
Surprising? Let’s dive a little deeper.
It’s fact – businesses today are using more cloud than they’re aware of. Many don’t address this, but the risks of not doing so are very impactful and long lasting. You’ll experience:
- 4-8 times more hidden costs than you realize
- Greater data security challenges including customer, employee, and other business critical data at risk for breaches
- Compliance and audit concerns including potential fines
- Continued challenges meeting the business needs of your internal stakeholders
- Growing integration challenges
You can choose to continue ignoring Shadow IT. It might save you a headache in the short-term, but the longer you wait, the bigger and more complicated the problem will become in the long-run.
So what are you waiting for?
Tackle your Shadow IT challenges, and make your lives easier in the long-term. Join me for our webinar on October 21st at 9am PT to help you Discover and Manage Your Shadow IT.
Webinar Details:
- Title: Discovering and Managing Your Shadow IT
- Date: October 21
- Time: 9am PT
I will be discussing how to discover your cloud risks, reduce your costs, and find the right providers. Click here to reserve your spot.
As always:
- For more information, check out: www.cisco.com/go/cloudconsumption
- Chat with me on Twitter to continue the conversation
You said “During the conversations I had with customers and partners, Shadow IT was continuously recognized as a challenge.” — But it’s also proven to be an opportunity to learn why people proactively bypass their internal legacy IT organization in search of better business technology that meets their needs/wants. My Point: CIOs and IT managers can discover a lot of insight by viewing Shadow IT as a benefit, not a threat.
David,
You are spot on and I so wish that more IT leaders would see the situation exactly as you outlined … shadow IT represents a super opportunity for them to gain insight to the needs and preferences of the lines of business, then act to enable wise choices for SaaS and IaaS. IT can take a leadership role here, using the cloud usage data to transform into a broker of services for lines of business. Why do you think so few IT leaders see this as an opportunity?