Employees Bypass IT as Department Too Slow to Approve Cloud Apps: Report

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This article originally appeared at The WHIR

As cloud adoption grows, keeping track of all the cloud applications in use at a business becomes a challenge. According to a report released on Monday by GigaOM and CipherCloud, though the cloud market is expected to grow 126.5 percent this year, having visibility into cloud applications continues to be difficult.

According to the report, Shadow IT: Data Protection and Cloud Security, SaaS is expected to grow at 199 percent and IaaS at 126 percent this year, respectively, but the lengthy approval process for new cloud applications is frustrating employees at organizations.

Eighty-one percent of survey respondents said that they use unauthorized SaaS applications, and 38 percent of employees deliberately bypassed IT in adopting applications because of the slow IT approval process.

In an interview with the WHIR earlier this year, Cisco Services senior director Robert Dimicco said that there are typically 5-10 times more cloud services being used in an organization than are known by IT.

“Organizations are moving beyond curiosity about the cloud to actual deployment,” Gigaom Research analyst George Crump said. “SaaS is growing at 199 percent and is the typical home for shadow IT. It is growing because end-users are impatient with IT and looking for alternatives.”

Security continues to be the top cloud adoption concern of 62 percent of respondents. Forty-four percent of respondents selected cloud performance as a concern, and 41 percent said the time needed to develop cloud-related skills was holding them back from adopting cloud.

The most commonly requested cloud applications are related to communications, file sync-and-share and disaster recovery. Other applications commonly requested included CRM and other sales automation tools.

“The research underscores the rapid adoption of the cloud by businesses both by IT and line of business employees,” said Paige Leidig, Chief Marketing Officer, CipherCloud. “It also reinforces security as a key concern and the importance of encryption to ensure data is fully protected and controlled.”

This article originally appeared at: http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/employees-bypass-department-slow-approve-cloud-apps-report