Shadow IT

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21
Jul 16

CIO Insight – Why IT Departments Lack Diversity Programs

The majority of IT departments and their organizations are doing relatively little to increase workforce diversity, according to a recent survey from TEKsystems. Very few tech pros and leaders, for example, said their company has a formal diversity program in place. They admit that they struggle to find quality talent to fill open IT positions, but they don’t often consider diversity in recruitment efforts—ignoring the value of existing diversity programs which could help close gaps.

“While IT departments struggle to find qualified IT workers for their teams, our data indicates that most have yet to leverage diversity programs to help solve that challenge,” said Michelle Webb, director of diversity and inclusion for TEKsystems. “In our conversations with clients regarding diversity initiatives, we’ve found that IT departments are less aware of the value that diversity programs can play in their skills-sourcing efforts when compared to human resources or business leadership.

With the shortage of qualified IT workers likely to increase, organizations need to add diversity programs to their arsenal to address their hiring needs.

More of the CIO Insight slideshow from Dennis McCafferty

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28
Apr 16

Continuity Central – The benefits of moving business critical to the cloud

The key difference is the way in which cloud allows these problems to be mitigated, resolved, and avoided in future.

Core enterprise applications such as ERP are not as readily moved off-site as other applications – but they’re propelling a new wave of cloud adoption. Andres Richter explains why organizations should consider making the switch.

Modern enterprise management software has come a long way from its industrial routes in providing procurement and manufacturing functionalities. Responding to changes in the technology landscape such as mobility, big data analytics and cloud computing, the software has had no choice but to evolve. Employees now require instant information at their fingertips, wherever they are, from any device. Unsurprisingly, core business functions of modern enterprise resource planning (ERP) such as financials, operations, HR and analytics require the same, consumerized flexibility offered by a plethora of non-business critical cloud-based applications. But it’s only the CIOs committed to future proofing their IT who have spotted this opportunity and have made the move from on-premise to a cloud-only or an integrated approach.

While vendors look at ways to disrupt the market, the challenge of convincing ‘stick in the mud’ IT decision makers that business continuity can be maintained during the transition to cloud ERP and beyond remains: but we are seeing an increase. Panorama Consulting’s ERP Report 2016 sees 27 percent of businesses adopting cloud ERP, a rise from 11 percent in the previous year. In our experience, more than 20 percent of current customers at Priority Software are already in the cloud. The take-up is particularly high in industries such as digital media, professional services and business services.

Baseline – How Shadow IT Can Generate Huge Savings

The majority of organizations are allowing—and some are even encouraging—employees to create mobile business apps without any involvement from the IT department, according to a survey from Canvas. The company’s “3rd Annual Mobile Business Application” survey reveals that corporate and IT executives no longer fear such shadow IT practices, especially when they’ve demonstrated the ability to boost productivity and innovation, while driving down operating costs. Many company decision-makers, in fact, are comfortable with this emerging trend and are investing in tablet acquisitions to encourage work teams to expand such efforts. “Innovation is occurring at such a rapid pace in the enterprise that employees do not want to wait around for overwhelmed IT departments, so plug-and-play cloud services are transforming everyday employees into citizen developers,” said James Robins, CMO at Canvas. “Business decision-makers and IT departments recognize this evolution, and are shifting their perspective of shadow IT from a perceived liability to an invaluable tool for rapid innovation and cost management.” Nearly 400 business and IT decision-makers took part in the research. – See more at: http://www.baselinemag.com/it-management/slideshows/how-shadow-it-can-generate-huge-savings.html#sthash.1JbQwy1Q.dpuf

More of the Baseline article from Dennis McCafferty

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24
Feb 16

Baseline – What Worries IT Organizations the Most?

IT employees and leaders have a lot to worry about these days, according to a recent survey from NetEnrich. For starters, they’re spending too much money on technology that either doesn’t get used or fails to deliver on its promises, findings show. They devote too many hours to “keeping the lights on” rather than innovating. And the increase of tech acquisition decisions being made outside of the IT department (shadow IT) elevates existing risks about cyber-security and business app performance. Meanwhile, tech departments are still struggling with a lack of available talent to support agility and business advances. “Corporate IT departments are in a real bind,” said Raju Chekuri, CEO at NetEnrich.

More of the Baseline slideshow from Dennis McCafferty

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10
Feb 16

CIOInsight – How to Embrace Rogue IT

Rogue IT is the foundation upon which innovation can be built. Rather than being restricted by traditional application and product development processes, non-IT teams can rapidly deploy solutions matching business requirements, thus accelerating new cost savings and resource efficiencies.

You might as well embrace rogue IT, or shadow IT, which will continue to grow in importance, and its impact will be felt globally, according to Tim Kelleher, vice president of IT Security Services at Century Link. Rogue IT might just lead to innovation and competitive advantage, he says. Employees increasingly will bypass corporate IT by subscribing to new collaboration, analytics or other cloud services to get work done, he says. Others will build homegrown applications via the cloud and other development platforms. This trend to remove power from corporate hands is enough to strike fear in any CIO because security risks and bandwidth restrictions can accompany each new project. On the other hand, “while the natural tendency is to limit unauthorized usage,” says Kelleher, “rogue IT can prove very useful to organizations today, driving new levels of innovation and productivity.

Baseline – Why IT Pros Give Tech Transformation a Weak Grade

Few front-line technology workers give their companies high marks for adapting to new, transformative tech, according to a recent survey from Business Performance Innovation (BPI) and Dimension Data. The resulting report, “Bringing Dexterity to IT Complexity: What’s Helping or Hindering IT Tech Professionals,” indicates that most organizations haven’t even begun to transform IT—or are just getting started. A major sore spot: A lack of collaboration and/or alignment with the business side, as most tech staffers said business teams wait too long to bring IT into critical planning processes. This, combined with a lack of funding and other resources, results in tech departments spending too much time on legacy maintenance and far too little on essential advances that bring value to the business. “Instead of ushering their companies into a new age of highly agile innovation, IT workers are hindered by a growing list of maintenance tasks, staff cutbacks and aging infrastructure,” according to the report.

More of the Baseline Magazine article from Dennis McCafferty

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25
Jan 16

CloudExpo blog – Cloud and Shadow IT – An Inevitable Pairing?

You can’t seem to have a conversation about cloud technology and its impact on the business without the topic of Shadow IT coming up. The two concepts at times seem so tightly intertwined, one would think there is a certain inevitability, almost a causal linkage between them. Shadow IT tends to be an emotional topic for many, dividing people into one of two camps. One camp tends to see Shadow IT as a great evil putting companies, their data and systems at risk by implementing solutions without oversight or governance. Another camp sees Shadow IT as the great innovators that are helping the company succeed by allowing the business to bypass a slow and stagnant IT organization. Does going to the cloud inherently mean there will be Shadow IT? If it does, is that necessarily a bad or good thing?

More of the CloudExpo blog post by Ed Featherston

Doug Theis Leave your comfort zone.