12 Important Facts About Shadow IT

With the boom in cloud services, shadow IT will pose significant challenges for CIOs in the next two years, according to new research from NTT Communications. Users are aware that they are breaking their companies' IT policies and putting their organizations at risk for security problems. NTT's survey of 500 IT and line-of-business (LOB) decision-makers, reveals that nearly three-fourths of respondents said shadow IT cloud usage is against their companies' policies, but continue to use shadow IT cloud services for several reasons. They believe these unapproved cloud services enable them to increase efficiency, deliver higher productivity and free up the IT department. A key driver behind the use of unapproved cloud services is the proliferation of free apps that are easily downloaded. The challenge is not how to drive cloud adoption but how to manage it, said NTT. The continued growth of shadow IT opens up opportunities for service providers to deliver approved services required by LOB pros, while helping them deal with the risks associated with shadow IT. We look at key findings from the NTT report that will help solution providers better understand shadow IT.