Shadow IT Hurts Automation Efforts
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Taking Command
68% of IT pros surveyed said their CIOs are either hands-on when it comes to automation, or they're thought leaders who demonstrate how automation can affect their organization. -
Potential Benefits of Automation
Changing the way virtual and cloud environments are managed: 82%, Allowing self-servicing organizationwide: 73%, Reducing the cost of IT operations: 68%, Automating big data and data integration projects: 65% -
Multifaceted
61% of IT execs said automation is helping their organization enhance the customer experience, and 59% said it increases productivity. More than half said it helps users share knowledge. -
Piecemeal Process
59% said their organization does not have a holistic approach to automation, and this ad hoc approach creates points of incompatibility. -
Going It Alone
Nearly half said their firm doesn't have mature business processes to automate, and that business owners are creating their own automated solutions with nonstandard or incorrect tools. -
Full Plate
78% of the IT execs said their tech department is overloaded, leaving them little time for value-added activities. -
Issues Caused by Heavy IT Workloads
IT's abilities and resources are stressed: 46%, Business benefits are placed at risk: 16%, IT has little time for anything but being "order takers": 16% -
Stalling Out
74% of IT execs said the tech department struggles—if it's not "dropping balls right and left" or having a "total meltdown"—when it comes to mobile development. -
Big (Data) Difficulties
66% encounter these levels of difficulty with respect to analytics and data science. -
Stormy Weather
58% of the executives face these same struggles when it comes to cloud computing. -
Tech-Challenged
Only 45% said business leaders in their organization know how to use tech to improve operations and gain a competitive advantage.
CIOs and other IT executives are eager to pursue tech automation solutions, as the many benefits—improved productivity, customer service and collaboration—are clear. However, the actual execution of these deployments remains highly disconnected, leading individual business departments to pursue shadow IT, which introduces potentially troublesome tech tools into the process, according to a recent survey from PMG. In organizations without enterprise-focused automation initiatives, tech employees feel overloaded: They spend too much time "taking orders," rather than advancing cloud, mobile and big data strategies. "IT departments are saying they are aligned with their organization's business goals," says Joe LeCompte, principal at PMG. "Combine that with the increased availability of drag-and-drop business process management and control tools, and the outlook for true enterprise automation is very bright. [However], shadow IT is also an issue for businesses looking to automate, with IT leaders saying that business departments deploy automation solutions without IT's knowledge. This is an issue IT needs to take the lead on curbing." More than 300 IT executives—including CIOs, CTOs, vice president-level officers, managers, supervisors and directors—took part in the research.