Every business has legacy apps, often out of date or cumbersome to us. For a decade consumers have heard the tag line “there’s an app for that.” How these realities intersect, there’s often intense friction. IT is focused on creating a stable and secure business environment while users are reaching for anything - apps, cloud services, devices and even whole PCs - that might help them collaborate, streamline and personalize their experience daily tasks.
This situation breeds distrust, wariness underground solutions known as shadow IT where individuals, managers and executives source their own tools and ignore many legacy apps or grudgingly use them (typically as little as possible. IT may never even know what apps are running, what they’re doing or who’s using them. Traditional methods of monitoring a network fall away when users simply use their own connection through their smartphones.
There’s the problem. The solution isn’t to try to squash shadow IT, as it will be like playing whack-a-mole. It will also drive shadow IT further underground. The solution is to bring these constituents together and rebuild those legacy apps in a way that both sides can agree on or compromise. That is a daunting task for most businesses and government agencies/contractors and there’s no way around that.
But there are tools, processes and guidance that can make far less challenging. This toolkit will help you prioritize and map out each part of the process. It will get you started on the path.