Over the past few months, I’ve spoken to people across a variety of companies, and one thing has become quite obvious: with today’s tooling, employees are eager and able(!) to build their own applications. Whether it’s a small script to automate a tedious task or a full-fledged web application to solve a very specific problem, they’re motivated to create solutions – both in their personal time (and often even on their own personal expense) and, increasingly, in a business context.
But there’s also a pattern that I recognized: There usually is no process and environment where people can simply deploy their applications in a business context. Those applications are built with great enthusiasm – an enthusiasm that you wouldn’t even create with cool company events – only to hit a wall when it comes to deployment. Employees either lack the infrastructure to run their applications, face weeks of approvals, or hit unexpected cost barriers – all of which kill innovation and drive shadow IT. The result? Wasted potential, security risks, and frustrated teams that could be building solutions for your business.
What if they also take the role of a hosting provider
This got me thinking: What if IT departments expanded their role? Instead of acting purely as a service provider for infrastructure and/or implementation, what if they also take the role of a hosting provider? What if they channeled this energy and provided a platform where employees could safely deploy their applications, turning shadow IT into visible, manageable, and secure IT?
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