Over 60% of organizations view shadow IT as a growing concern, pinpointing risks including data loss, breaches, and non-compliance. Power Automate is a key solution under the Microsoft Power Platform umbrella, catering to growing shadow IT concerns of organizations. Power Automate for citizen developers provides a safe and regulated development environment. This, in turn, enables end-users to create and automate workflows promptly. In this blog post, I explain how Power Atuomate empowers citizen developers to streamline business processes and mitigate shadow IT risks by providing a secure, governed platform for automating workflows, enhancing productivity, and ensuring compliance within organizations.
Understanding the Concept of Citizen Development & Shadow IT
Citizen development took center stage in the 2024 business market due to the need for rapid innovation and tech democratization. Citizen developers, who are often business users without formal IT experience or training, play a crucial role in modern organizations by swiftly addressing process inefficiencies through automation. However, when these users resort to unauthorized tools, it can result in data breaches, compliance issues, and fragmented systems. Power Automate tackles these challenges by providing an intuitive interface and a broad range of pre-built connectors to popular applications. This empowers users to develop custom workflows while maintaining IT oversight. Consequently, all automated processes remain secure, compliant, and seamlessly integrated with the existing IT infrastructure, effectively mitigating the risks associated with shadow IT. In the long run, citizen development is cost-effective, as business users can create their own solutions, reducing the need for expensive outsourced IT development. Additionally, citizen developers can bypass several steps in the traditional IT development process and swiftly address business needs.
Shadow IT can be explained as unofficial application development without IT governance, which often leads to compliance issues and security vulnerabilities. This situation is common among organizations where employees create and implement solutions on their own to meet business needs quickly. Some of the shadow IT risks associated with citizen development include the use of unauthorized tools and applications, such as personal cloud storage services or unsanctioned project management apps. These can lead to integration challenges with other systems, resulting in data silos and workflow inefficiencies. Unapproved integrations with SaaS platforms like Slack or Trello can further complicate data management and security, highlighting the importance of maintaining oversight and governance in citizen development initiatives.
Correlation Between Citizen Development and Shadow IT:
As evident from the sections above, citizen development and shadow IT are closely intertwined, both driven by the need for rapid business solution development. While citizen development aims to deliver innovation within a regulated and governed framework, shadow IT operates independently, outside of the purview of IT control or compliance.
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Request a DemoPower Automate for Citizen Developers
Power Automate is a standout business app in the Microsoft Power Platform suite. Given the shortage of programmers, data scientists, and tech professionals, Microsoft’s goal was to create a platform that not only targeting these technology experts, but also empowered millions of frontline workers. These workers, who encounter opportunities daily to improve the status quo, can now leverage Power Automate to bring their ideas to life. By doing so, organizations can gain a competitive edge by tapping into the creativity of their employees while ensuring that all developments remain secure and compliant with IT standards.
Managing IT Risks with Power Automate:
Managing IT risks with the latest release of Power Automate includes multiple features that ensure security and compliance:
- Centralized Governance: With Power Automate, citizen developers get access to a centralized platform where they can easily oversee and manage their workflows. This centralized oversight helps Ensure all automations (or Power Automate Flows) adhere to required protocols and regulations standards, enhancing overall governance.
- Data Loss Prevention (DLP): IT administrators can define and control data access within automated workflows by leveraging the DLP feature. It ensures that data shared through automation remains protected, preventing unauthorized access and data leaks.
- Secure Connectors: As of 2024, Power Automate supports over 700 secure connectors for integrating with multiple apps and services. These secure connectors facilitate a comprehensive and integrated solution, maintaining data integrity and security across various platforms.
IT Governance in Power Automate:
The governance capabilities in Power Automate are remarkable, providing robust support for businesses implementing citizen development initiatives through features like audit trails, role-based access control (RBAC), and compliance management.
- Audit Trails: Power Automate ensures process accountability by maintaining detailed logs of all activities, providing IT with a clear audit trail for tracking and review.
- Role-Based Access Control: RBAC acts as a next-generation enabler for citizen developers. Business users can create, modify, and run workflows while maintaining strict access controls to ensure security.
- Compliance Management: Power Automate includes built-in compliance tools and continuous monitoring capabilities, helping businesses stay compliant with regulatory requirements.
Secure Power Automate Workflows:
Another major reason why Power Automate is an ideal fit for citizen developers is its ability to facilitate the creation of secure workflows through robust environment management, encryption, and authentication and authorization mechanisms.
- Environment Management: Power Platform, which Power Automate resides in, offers multiple environment types, including Default, Sandbox, Production, Trial and Developer. This isolation allows end-users to maintain security across various projects and departments, ensuring that development, testing, and production activities do not interfere with each other.
- Encryption: All data processed through Power Automate is protected from unauthorized access with advanced encryption, ensuring the confidentiality and integrity of information at rest and in transit.
- Authentication and Authorization: Power Automate supports sign-on (SSO) and multi-factor authentication (MFA), providing robust security by only allowing verified users to access the platform. This helps to prevent unauthorized access and ensures that only authenticated personnel can create and manage workflows.
Real-World Scenarios: Power Automate for Citizen Developers
Though citizen development is all the rage in 2024, it comes with the inherent risk of shadow IT. Below are real-world scenarios across various business verticals that illustrate the risks associated with shadow IT and how Power Automate for citizen developers can make all the difference.
| Industry | Use Case | Shadow IT Risks | Power Automate Solution |
|---|---|---|---|
|
IT |
A marketing manager at an IT company needed to oversee content across legacy content directories. So, she develops, deploys, and uses a centralized cloud-based content management app. |
Employees might bypass the shiny new app and stick with their beloved legacy tools or other unauthorized content management solutions. |
With its built-in compliance management features, Power Automate ensures any content management app is used within a controlled and regulated environment, making rogue apps a thing of the past. |
|
Fin-tech |
A leading bank’s marketing team uses an online survey platform to gather customer feedback. |
The third-party platform might be as secure as a screen door on a submarine, risking client data leaks. |
Users can easily create an interactive internal survey solution integrated directly with the bank’s systems, ensuring client data is gathered and stored securely. |
|
Retail |
Retail sales teams often juggle multiple unauthorized apps for lead tracking and customer journey insights. |
With info scattered across various platforms, it's like trying to herd cats- plus, it’s prone to security breaches. |
Power Automate’s workflows capture and sync data in real-time across the CRM system, ensuring data integrity and security without cat herding. |
|
Healthcare |
A hospital’s administrative staff uses a free online tool to manage patient appointments. |
Patient data could end up exposed, leading to a HIPAA nightmare |
Power Automate enables the creation of a secure, compliant appointment management system that integrates seamlessly with existing healthcare records. |
So, whether you’re in IT, retail, fin-tech, or healthcare, Power Automate is your secret weapon against the risks of shadow IT. It helps citizen developers create secure, compliant workflows, making your business run smoother than ever.
AlphaBOLD Helps Leverage Power Automate to Mitigate Shadow IT Risks
AlphaBOLD’s technology experts are here to help you assess and mitigate the risks of shadow IT within your organization. Our approach begins with a thorough evaluation of your current IT landscape to identify and address any existing shadow IT issues. Once we’ve assessed the risk, we train your team on using Power Automate to create secure, compliant workflows that align with your business needs.
As early adopters of the Microsoft Power Platform and Power Automate, we have sucessfully delivered projects across various industries and business sizes. Our Microsoft Power Automate consultants ensure that your IT solutions adhere to standard regulatory protocols and unique policies. Here’s how we can help:
- Risk Assessment: We start by understanding your automation needs and assessing the risk of Shadow IT in your organization.
- Custom Workflow Implementation: We create a tailored plan for implementing custom workflows, whether for individuals or departments, to streamline your business processes.
- Training and Mentorship: Our experts provide comprehensive user training, mentoring employees and IT teams on effectively using Power Automate.
- Post-Implementation Support: In the first four to six weeks after the implementation, our team offers ongoing support to address any post-go-live issues and ensure smooth operation.
Our low-code automation solutions cater to IT Managers, Directors, Operations Managers, Chief Information Officers (CIOs), Marketing Managers, HR Managers, Customer Service Managers, Sales Managers, Business Analysts, Project Managers, and Finance Managers. Additionally, our solutions provide deep analytical insights, enabling better decision-making and improved process efficiency.
For more information and to explore how AlphaBOLD can help your organization leverage Power Automate, visit Power Automate Licensing.
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Request a DemoConclusion
Traditional app development just doesn’t cut it anymore. It is a long and costly process. Citizen development offers a solution that is close to perfect for organizations to bridge this IT capacity gap. However, we cannot miss the shadow IT risks associated with citizen development. Power Automate by Microsoft Power Platform helps businesses out of this situation as it offers completely governed development environments for citizen developers. Power Automate’s governance features, like data loss prevention, centralized governance, and secure connectors, can ensure compliance. Request a Demo from AlphaBOLD today and discover how our Power Automate experts can help you streamline processes, empower citizen developers, and mitigate shadow IT risks.
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