MicroScope+ Premium Content/MicroScope

There was an interesting survey reported on MicroScope recently which estimated that companies were spending as much as 40% extra of the official IT budget in so-called “shadow spending”. The survey by CEB estimated that marketing, HR, finance and operations and other departments were splurging the 40% extra cash on technology outside the IT budget and without going through the CIO. Instead, they used their own budgets to buy the technology they wanted. Understandably, there are concerns that shadow spending could present a risk or threat to the organisation, but CEB managing director Andrew Horne preferred to look at it as a “sign of healthy innovation” that presented “a valuable opportunity for IT to work more closely with business partners to develop new capabilities”. While failing to recognise the extent of tech-driven projects happening outside the IT department could be a cause for concern, Horne warned that “trying to maintain total control is equally a step in the wrong direction”. Instead, CIOs should seek to get the ...