End-Users are Using Unsanctioned Technology Services and Costing Organizations Billions

A recent study by Harmon.ie shows that end-users are going around corporate IT at an alarming rate. Even when IT has already provided adequate and secure methods for corporate workers to do their jobs, they still secretly use non-sanctioned services to collaborate and perform business functions. With the majority of employees now using two or more devices every day, this is an immediate issue that not only affects IT's ability to do their job, but it also impacts the business in a number of ways.

Related: BYOD Checkup: Where We're At

Unrealized cost is one of the bigger factors when end-users "roll-their-own" IT services. The Harmon.ie report estimates that "Rogue IT" is costing companies over $1 Billion a year. Obvious factors include legal issues when data has been compromised or given access to unintended recipients, and data duplication and out of synch files. Even though corporate data may reside in the company's datacenter, when end-users use various online services such as Dropbox or Google Docs to perform business functions, the most current revisions of documents or files may only exist outside the corporate firewall, creating duplicate, out of synch files and making the corporate protected data irrelevant. Even though IT is tasked with backing up and safeguarding company data, responsibility for the most current files has shifted to the end-user and the service they chose to use.

The study suggests that end-users are aware of the corporate policies but ignore them anyway. And, even though employees are aware of and have reported issues where docs have reached unintended recipients, they continue to use the services again and again. In essence, end-users don't really care how it effects the business.

We've entered dangerous times where end-users are allowed to push the bounds of corporate policy, and with BYOD becoming a more common acronym on business workers' lips, it's only going to get worse. The report shows that a whopping 89% of respondents use their smartphone to get work done, with laptops at 85%, desktops at 78%, and tablets at 59%. This means end-users are potentially carrying mobile time bombs.

You can download the full report here:  The High-Cost of Mobile Business Users' Rogue IT Practices

Infographic:

Compiled By: Harmon.ie