What is Shadow IT?
When a business plans to set out the IT team, they often go for solutions based on their short-term needs. The reason for it is many businesses overlook the obstacles they might face in the future. So, whether you have in house team or use third party services its important to manage the implementation of your IT in crucial times. Today businesses have much software they use for daily basis operations and number of computers on which they don’t really have much knowledge on that’s where shadow IT comes in
Reason for Shadow IT
Many times workers will have full knowledge of what they must do on their stated jobs. But other than that, they don’t know much about what is going on in software. However, it is useful for the short term and they are likely to get confused in case of any updates or changes in the system.
IT is a tough department and developers are constantly looking for more updates to make the system work more efficiently. An organization where there is no communication between the IT team and employees. Such organizations tend to get lost in the jungle of updates and become of shadow IT.
Suggested solutions
Shadow IT can seem to be a small thing but if not given proper solutions at the right time. It can result in the company’s losing efficiency and productivity
- Consolidate applications where possible: if you can find a one-stop solution for all your IT needs such as Microsoft office 365 or google apps to manage different works such as finances, documents, inventory equipment
- Monitor user activity: By monitoring activity, you will be to know how much your employee knows and what you need to train him to make sure that the maximum level of productivity is achieved.
- Research applications: Most of the applications tell you what you need to know and what is fit for your business. But in case, you aren’t aware than its important that you do research according to your business and get aware to make the most of your IT
- Educate your users: IT is technical and everybody isn’t that tech-savvy to automatically understand the software so it’s important to educate users and update them on the usage of the software.
