Accepting the Cloud vs. Accepting Shadow IT

Tuesday, Jun 28th 2022
man working on his computer late at night with graphs and code

I asked myself whether it would be possible to manage communication projects in a collaborative way with teams located in different countries with no access to the Cloud.

Let’s imagine we don’t have the Cloud at work. We ftp, we email mass volumes of information and documents back and forth and we get lost in versioning because people forget; we create excel files to list all the changes; project management is a pain so we end up meeting face to face to synchronize individual actions and thoughts.

Realizing the necessary effort to exchange files with colleagues, not being sure that we own the latest release of the document, we as employees start thinking of alternative solutions.

We use SaaS at home and we need it at work: Dropbox to share files, Google to organize meetings, etc. Naturally employees subscribe to Cloud applications to facilitate their daily job. The same happened with phones - BYOD devices must be taken into account by any IT department, now Cloud applications help colleagues from the same company work effectively together and remotely.

It’s difficult to go around and not be attracted by turn-key Cloud solution accessible within a SaaS model.

Read Laurent's Cloud Computing Series Posts: 

(Part One) Is the Public Cloud safe?

(Part Two) My Enterprise Brain is Made of Cloud Neurons

We talked to Customer Experience managers, and figured out that teams work in silos. In order to get customer feedback and cross-check information from multiple customer facing employees to better serve their customers, it has become apparent that it is next to impossible in a world without access to the Cloud. Whether your IT department or the business accepts this fact or not: Cloud apps are being used by the majority of corporations and enterprises by the employees themselves to collaborate more effectively – this is the very definition of “Shadow IT.”

By the time you capture information, you consolidate it: it’s already moved a step forward. Consolidating the voice of the customer must happen in a Cloud application so that all employees can be informed in real-time of the latest details on the customer’s complaint or experience or journey. In order to keep-up, move faster with SaaS by accepting the efficiency of the Cloud and the true-collaborative impact on employees.