What is Shallow IT? Is it different from Shadow IT?

Since the turn of the century, corporate organisations have switched to participative management. The management consults employees on a range of policy matters. This kind of democracy is transforming corporate IT too, thanks to the rise of shallow IT.

Shallow IT is an antidote to shadow IT. In shadow IT, employees sidestep their employer’s IT infrastructure.They use alternative applications without permission. Why do they do this? One reason is that these applications offer innovative solutions.

But sharing sensitive information over unauthorised channels, like cloud services,is risky. Besides,employees use these applications without the organisation’s knowledge. The average organisation uses 1,083 cloud services, says cloud access security broker Skyhigh.But it does not know about 975 of these.

Shallow IT reconciles two things:

• Employees’ need for innovative IT applications
• Organisation’s need for data security.

Itallows employees to use new resources in a limited way with the full awareness of the IT department.

What is shallow IT?

There is no universally accepted definition for shallow IT. But here is the most common interpretation:

Organisations tend to block or limit access to certain applications. They insist that employees only use company-approved products.They do so even if more efficient alternatives are available.

Under shallow IT,organisations realise why employees prefer these alternative applications. New technologies reduce effort and offer better solutions. Organisations need to understand the gaps between what they are providing and whatemployeeswant to use. Theyneed to rollout technologies that add value without compromising security.

At first, organisations introduce these technologies in systems that do not handle sensitive information. Data shared on these new platforms needclose monitoring. Testing the platforms is necessary to ensure compliance with the organisation’s IT policy.

Shallow IT allows experimental use of technologies in systems that would not use them. This reveals how the system might gain from a different technology.

Finally, the organisation assesses the new technology.Did it add value? If so, a wider rollout could happen. Suppose anorganisationwants to accommodate the new technology. It mayhave to revise its IT policies.

Benefits

The biggest benefit of shallow IT is that it reduces the use of rogue deployments.The IT department remains in the loop.Shallow IT also motivates employees to try out new ideas.

Shallow IT vs. Shadow IT

Here are some key differences between shallow IT andShadow IT.

1. Company involvement: Shadow IT impliesthe use ofunapproved applications and services. The IT department does notknow about this use. Cloud usage is about 10times more than organisations expect, says Skyhigh.In shallow IT, employees use new technologies under the supervision of the IT department.
2. Resource duplication: In shadow IT, employees use rogue deployments.Why? Because the applicationsprovided by the IT department are not good enough. This creates a parallel IT environment with duplicateIT resources. Organisations end up paying for servicesthat nobody uses. Shallow IT experiments with new applications thatcould add value to theorganisation. They can enhance the organisation’s capabilities while ensuring zero resource duplication.
3. Data security: Inshallow IT, experimentation with new technologies happens only in less-sensitive functions. Besides, the IT department monitors this data. This minimises the risk of loss or exposure of sensitive data. Under shadow IT, even coresystem employees share sensitive information over rogue applications. This is a big threatto data security.