Nobody likes to be undermined. But that’s what’s happening to corporate IT departments across industries thanks to shadow IT projects.

Via: Wikibon Infographics

According to a survey of the Wikibon community, fully 60% of respondents cited at least some level of spending on technology and services taking place outside of a centralized IT group. A quarter of respondents said 25% or more of all technology spending occurs via so-called stealth IT departments. And that’s just shadow IT spending they’re aware of.

Shadow IT projects are being driven by what users feel is a lack of responsiveness from overwhelmed IT departments. Rather than wait six months for a new dashboard or application, frustrated business users are turn to SaaS offerings or downloading free open source tools to meet their needs. This Wikibon infographic illustrates the tools of the trade and the typical lifecycle of shadow IT projects:

CIOs might be tempted to take an “out of sight, out of mind” approach to shadow IT spending, but the consequences could be severe. Shadow IT projects often disregard, inadvertently or not, both internal corporate security policies as well as industry regulations around compliance and discovery. In short, well meaning business users are more apt to break laws and take other actions that could jeopardize the entire enterprise when operating shadow IT projects.

Via: Wikibon Infographics

That means CIOs need to take action now to prevent disaster in the future.