Shadow IT Goes Legit as 'Query from Hell' Gets Defanged

“Sadin on Digital” episodes explore the fast-changing and
high-stakes world of digital business. Wayne Sadin and I focus in
particular on what CEOs and boards must do to lead their
companies successfully into the Digital Age. Today, we talk 2020.
Wayne shares his predictions, ideas and recommendations for
boards and the C-suite.


Episode 12


In this episode: Wayne begins with the term “Shadow IT,” which
are systems built within organizations and used without approval.
He says, let’s do a little history lesson: In years past there
were only mainframes. And then we had minicomputers, and they
begat PCs, and people could say, “I can do stuff on this. I just
need this thing on my screen.” And that turned into, “Why don’t I
share that nice Excel spreadsheet with this other person?” And
then that other person shared it with yet another person, and
before long it gets published as one of the corporate financials.


Wayne says there is a book by Fred Brooks called “The Mythical
Man Month,” and it’s one of the seminal works of managing IT.
Wayne says it talks about the notion that if I’m building a
system for me it takes X effort. And if I’m building for other
people, it takes three times that effort. By the way, Fred Brooks
was the architect of the IBM System 360 software package – the
biggest software product ever delivered.


He says the problem with databases is they are being hit millions
and millions and millions of times a day – or maybe billions if
companies have an IoT situation. Organizations have machines
sending machine messages, he says, and people don’t want to let
end users into the database. He says it’s known colloquially as
the query from hell.


He says companies moving to a SaaS-based ERP, and a cloud-based
ERP can get multiple benefits. Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce,
Workday, and others have what are called “data lakes,” which are
structured and unstructured data.


Wayne talks about “horses for courses” – if you’re changing
something that touches the general ledger or is ever reported in
external financials to investors or customers, you have to have a
level of control. It’s not a free-for-all, and the system will
magically keep you from doing a stupid thing when you’re making a
calculation.


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