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Damn Those Covert Operators
They happen in all the obvious ways: a power user just wants to experiment with that server underneath his desk; a temp worker installs a network-hogging application on his desktop to save time; sales guys expense a wireless access point so they can use it in their part of the office. Then there's the guy who knows just enough technology to be dangerous and thus builds his own database because he's tired of waiting for someone else to spec it out.
Although it can happen in any unit of a company, the CIOs we interviewed agree on the most likely culprits: engineering and research groups, who typically install their own computers and software for developing new tools or running experiments. "They're notorious," says Bart Stanco, a senior vice president at Gartner Inc. and its former CIO. Software developers, sales and marketing are offenders too, he adds.
These folks might be entrepreneurial, tired of waiting for IT or determined to do projects behind the curtain because they got cut from the official budget. So there they operate, their software code spinning in stealth mode until the hapless CIO discovers them during a vulnerability scan or production mysteriously grinds to a halt.
Midmarket companies are especially vulnerable because they have entrepreneurial histories. For years companies grew without an official head of IT. So finance executives created spreadsheets that grew into mission-critical applications. And everyone got used to running around the corner to CompUSA to buy what was needed to get through the day. Suddenly, a CIO arrives -- but few want to give up control.
Although business rebels who launch these projects do so to improve how they do their jobs, they often end up hurting the company. If these projects don't cause an immediate disaster like the one Juliano encountered, they have other downsides. They cost more money than they're worth because they don't integrate well with the company's existing platforms. They make the corporate network more vulnerable to viruses, or they don't scale. Among other problems, sometimes they just don't work.
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