Shadow IT - Cloud Usage a Growing Challenge for CIOs

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NTT Communications

12 Apr, 2016, 07:30 GMT

LONDON, April 12, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

New survey reveals that 77% have used third party cloud applications without the knowledge of their IT department  

NTT Communications Corporation (NTT Com), the ICT solutions and international communications business within NTT (NYSE: NTT), announced today the results of a survey that reveals that not only is Shadow IT a current challenge for CIOs, but the problem is set to get worse over the next two years.

Based on research of 500 decision-makers across IT and lines-of-business from the United Kingdom, France, Spain and Germany in March 2016 more than seven in ten (73%) IT decision maker respondents claim that they find it difficult to manage their organisation's cloud platforms. Just over three quarters (77%) of respondents claim that departments within their organisation have commissioned a cloud service without the involvement of the IT department.

10 Key Survey Findings: 

  1. Over seven in ten (77%) decision maker respondents have used a third party cloud application without the approval or knowledge of their IT departments
  2. More than six in ten (63%) of business respondents are aware of other departments within their organisation using cloud applications without informing their IT departments
  3. Eight out of ten (83%) believe that Shadow IT will increase over the next two years - (Business view 87% - IT view 80%)
  4. Over half (56%) of the respondents do not know which country their cloud based data is stored in
  5. Users are aware they are breaking IT guidelines and mostly do this in full knowledge. Only 2% state they are unaware of the policies with 73% agreeing that their shadow IT cloud usage would be against company legislation
  6. The main drivers for shadow IT are increased efficiency 60%, increased productivity 62% and 58% believing it to free up IT department's time - (Business respondents)
  7. Over eight out of ten (83%) use popular free, unregulated cloud storage applications such as Google Drive, Dropbox and Apple iCloud, for sharing company information
  8. Seven out of ten (70%) believe that the usage of free cloud storage will increase over the next two years, implying that shadow IT and unregulated system usage is here to stay
  9. Eight in ten (80%) respondents believe that their data stored in the cloud is critical to the running of their department
  10. Nearly eight in ten (77%) believe that withdrawal of shadow IT cloud services would limit their department's functionality

Eight out of ten (83%) of business managers said they would participate in a "cloud amnesty" where users could turn in their Shadow IT cloud contracts with no action taken, even if there was no guarantee that access to the cloud services would remain the same.

"Clearly the hottest issue today isn't how to drive cloud adoption, but rather how to manage it. Both IT and business functions have realized the benefits of using cloud systems and applications but most IT departments haven't figured out a good way to manage the situation," states Len Padilla, Vice President Product Strategy at NTT Communications in Europe. "This challenge is one of the main reasons that we have developed our  Cloud Management Platform; to make it possible for IT departments to allow safe and sane adoption of cloud systems and applications by their users."

To download the full report, visit: http://www.eu.ntt.com/en/Shadow_IT.html

More information on Cloud Management Platform: http://www.eu.ntt.com/en/services/cloud/enterprise-cloud/Cloud_Management_Platform.html

About the research  

The survey took place during March 2016, and was carried out by independent consultancy Vanson Bourne who polled 500 decision makers, of companies with more than 1000 employees from the UK, France, Germany and Spain. The research was split 50/50 between IT and business lines to monitor the differing view on shadow IT. All businesses were in the private sector and had over 1,000 employees with respondents from sectors including financial services, retail, manufacturing, professional services, IT, and energy.

About NTT Communications Corporation 

NTT Communications provides consultancy, architecture, security and cloud services to optimize the information and communications technology (ICT) environments of enterprises. These offerings are backed by the company's worldwide infrastructure, including the leading global tier-1 IP network, the Arcstar Universal One™ VPN network reaching 196 countries/regions, and 140 secure data centers worldwide. NTT Communications' solutions leverage the global resources of NTT Group companies including Dimension Data, NTT DOCOMO and NTT DATA.

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