Originally published by Service Desk Institute on August 21, 2015
Cloud services have quickly become ubiquitous in the workplace. It’s fair to say that no matter which industry you look at, cloud services are being used – whether it’s Dropbox to save files on multiple devices or a cloud portal to access the company’s network. The benefits of cloud services have been wide-ranging but, left unchecked, there can be a darker side to their use. This has been backed up by some recent research among CIOs that we here at Fruition Partners commissioned, where CIOs reported that cloud is actually reducing ITSM maturity by 50%. The research found that, on average, there were six separate management processes in place for in-house IT services, compared to three for cloud services.
What the research highlights is that although the easy availability of public cloud services may mean CIOs need to provide fewer IT services themselves, it doesn’t reduce the need for the management of those services. If anything, it actually increases this need as a lack of clear policies and controls is highly risky, especially if employees have the ability to use cloud applications without authorisation. Worryingly, this unsanctioned cloud use is also on the increase, with over half (60%) of CIOs surveyed stating there was an increasing culture of “shadow IT” in their organisations, and almost 80% believing there are cloud applications in use that IT does now know about.
Although some CIOs are aware of the risks – especially when it comes to security – there can be a false sense of reassurance associated with ‘outsourcing’ to public cloud providers. Aside from the security risks, there are potential problems associated with outsourcing support and change management. The research shows that just over half (53%) of respondents state that with SaaS applications, such as Salesforce or Dropbox, if users have problems with cloud applications they deal with the cloud provider’s support team directly, and IT seems to be happy to let them do this. In addition to lost control, this can result in the cloud provider pointing the finger at the customer’s IT environment unchallenged, as a result the ‘blame games’ start. By keeping control of the support function, IT departments can mitigate the risks as they have the skills and knowledge to pinpoint the root causes of user issues.
Cloud services should be centrally managed by the IT department to avoid the risk of a service going offline and not being able to resolve the problem quickly and efficiently – or indeed have the ability to monitor how the service is being used. As such, it’s vital that CIOs and IT departments don’t lose control of their IT systems, as it increases both risk and cost to the business in the long run. By applying established ITSM principles to cloud that they use to manage in-house IT services, CIOs can re-establish control of IT and make the most of new technologies whilst still keeping services up and running.