How to Manage & Prevent Shadow IT

If your organization is facing a case of shadow IT, you are not alone. About 83% of CIOs say that they have had unauthorized cloud provisioning in their firm. Shadow IT, which we explained here, can be difficult to manage when there are many employees within your organization looking for cloud solutions, often with a time restraint for different projects. How can you properly manage and prevent shadow IT?

One of the best ways is by using an enterprise app request portal. If you don’t know what that is, let us explain. An app request portal can form a central part of your IT provisioning process, ensuring end users select from a pre-authorized list of cloud services. It allows employees to request cloud solutions themselves through an easy-to-use portal that looks just like a traditional app store found on smartphones. After the end user request is made, the portal implements multi-layered approvals and assists in the provisioning of the service.

An app request portal is extremely effective in preventing shadow IT, as it gives employees a simple and centralized method for requesting cloud services. It ensures that requests adhere to IT processes, rather than having users blindly self-select services, often through a Google search. The portal also ensures that the request will be processed and approved quickly, which eliminates any worry about time constraints if the application is needed urgently.

The portal is a feature of Vizor, the IT asset management system which offers additional benefits for shadow IT. The system provides a central repository for cloud apps and associated subscriptions, making them easy to allocate to employees across the organization. Being able to see and manage all cloud apps in one place is crucial, as cloud services are rapidly becoming more appealing for organizations but they can easily get scattered or slip away unauthorized.

There you have it – the simplest and most effective way to prevent shadow IT. Be sure to take time to find cases of shadow IT in your firm (there may be more than you think), and then track & manage it with these small steps.

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