The issue is that CMOs are implementing solutions without the IT department’s involvement and possibly exposing the organisation to security risks. Putting the organisation at risk should be the first concern for new IT: can the solution be supported; can the data be tracked, separated, safeguarded, backed up; who has ownership of the data, is it portable, is it crossplatform capable; does it compromise existing infrastructure, scalability and application security? All are major concerns that organisations face when CMOs and CIOs do not co-operate. A power struggle then ensues as both colleagues are at the same management level.

CIOs are at a disadvantage as to how to support the applications and often cannot assess the risk posed to the organisation because it is implemented without their involvement. The possible business disruption and the fragment infrastructure it creates within organisations will cause many new, unforeseen problems down the road. For example, the support, upgrades, and security are often facilitated by the vendor or a combination of new hires to support and administer the new applications. These specialised IT administrators for the new apps cause conflicts with existing IT resources due to the overlap of duties, and confusion over who to listen to and which application to support and integrate into existing infrastructure.

Organisations are facing increasing integration issues, data mining, reporting issues, security and actual adoption by implementing non-IT department approved applications. This further fragments the company infrastructure, platform and application IT vision that can quickly be derailed. Larger organisations are less vulnerable due to the rigidity of hierarchical management structure and more defined rules of each individual’s job responsibilities. Small and medium sized organisations are more susceptible to this new wrinkle as roles are sometimes less defined a less enforced where IT strategy is concerned.

CMOs and CIOs will have to find a way to work together to bridge these differences and solve the business issues that shadow IT will create.

One disturbing trend we are seeing is that CMOs are implementing applications, usually SaaS-based, which, thanks to the lack of upfront commitment can and are easily abandoned for various reasons. This creates an environment where there is higher organisation risk for auxiliary and errant data. This issue is often not dealt with organisationally. Users also can become desensitised to conformance to proper IT corporate-wide implementation procedures that are designed to reduce the chance of IT failure for larger projects.
Another effect of this is end-user fatigue and overload. Spending time and energy to learn many new applications only to later abandon them causes confusion as to what applications are used for what purposes. Consequently, different rules of conduct and restrictions may also apply to the newly installed applications.

Shadow IT will pose many problems for organisations in the future by creating parallel solutions, some with possible overlap. Determining how to consolidate, administer, secure, back-up and storage, integrations, and rules of conduct are all areas where organisations are potentially vulnerable.

It will be interesting to see how these C-level executives work together and what organisational structure changes may occur due to this new fad.

ABOUT KEENAN PERSAUD//

Keean Persaud is managing director of consulting and analyst firm for enterprise software company Eval-Source consulting, analyst firm for enterprise software.