Effects of Shadow-IT in Supply-chain Industries
- With the establishment of information technology in companies around the turn of the millennium, solutions developed independently in the various specialist departments emerged alongside those provided centrally by the IT department. This is referred to as shadow IT. However, this has an enormous impact on the company. In this case, neither the necessary support can be guaranteed by the IT departments nor can agreed security standards be adhered to. Shadow-IT exposes security flaws, but it also opens the door for criminatls and jeopardizes the organization´s compliance status. It is critical to understand the employees´ inclination about the usage of Shadow-IT in order to reduce or to adapt to it. The objective of this thesis is to describe Shadow-IT, present its challenges and opportunities, and develop an identification model which focuses on scanning of the network using ping sweep technique and activity monitoring of services running on different devices. Furthermore, organizational approaches are identified to manage Shadow-IT.
Within the first part of the thesis, a brief introduction to Shadow-IT will be presented. In the consecutive parts, an extensive literature review will enable the description of existing methods and prior work on identification methodologies, such as ping sweep technology. Based on the findings, organizational approaches are identified using case study research process and literature review to develop an adequate model to manage shadow IT.
In the course of a validation, the results are mirrored on an example from the supply chain industry.
