Rethinking Shadow IT: Empowering Technology Leaders to Drive Business Synergy

In a recent meeting with a media giant in the UAE, the CXO expressed concern over merging software delivery and project management under one division. Their worry? Losing internal agility and transparency. And that concern sparked this article

The rise of Shadow IT didn’t just sneak in through the back door—it walked right in during the pandemic. With digital urgency at an all-time high, business units started bypassing traditional IT to get things done faster. Gartner estimates Shadow IT now represents up to 30–40% of enterprise tech spend. And in my 15+ years advising over 100 enterprise clients, I’ve never seen the business IT divide more visible.

The Silent Conflict: Business vs IT

Across industries—especially in retail, QSR, and media—I’ve consistently witnessed a quiet battle. Business units accuse IT of delays; IT teams push back, citing lack of resources or poor vendor support. Internally, vendors are often split into two camps: “business-backed” and “IT-backed.”

One pattern is crystal clear: in the most harmonious and effective organizations, IT has direct or indirect commercial KPIs. These teams aren’t just responsible for delivery—they’re running towards the same business outcomes. And when time-to-market directly impacts revenue, that alignment becomes non-negotiable.

The Cost of Vendor Inflation

The side effect of decentralized tech decisions? Vendor chaos. Too many overlapping suppliers. Too many tools are doing similar things. I call this vendor inflation, and it’s draining budgets, fragmenting data, and undermining agility.

By 2025, the tide is turning. More companies are actively trying to consolidate technology partners, simplify vendor stacks, and regain architectural clarity. Not because it’s trendy—but because fragmentation is expensive.

GenAI, Shadow Roles & a Strategic Reversal

Yes, GenAI has brought CMO, COO, and CCO roles closer to tech. That’s a great thing. But there’s a risk: when non-IT leaders become primary decision-makers in complex technical arenas, long-term scalability and integration risks are often overlooked. Conversely, CIOs and CTOs—while deeply informed—can sometimes lose sight of market pace or idealize technical purity over pragmatic delivery.

So, what if we flipped the model?

Instead of more Shadow IT, what we need is more “Shadow CMO/COO/CCO” within tech leadership.

Let’s empower CIOs and CTOs to lead with business KPIs in mind. When IT understands the revenue targets and product lifecycles, and the business respects the architectural implications of their decisions, we unlock real synergy.

A Personal Reflection

In one of my past product roles, I was part of an organization involving eight product managers and eight tech leads and i was one of the product managers. One day, our VP called me and my engineering counterpart in—not to praise us, but to ask if something was wrong. Why? Because we weren’t fighting. To her that was unnatural. But to us, it was proof that shared goals eliminate friction.

Final Thought

Organizational change, tech migrations, and platform shifts shouldn’t be siloed projects—they should be shared business objectives. When every department, especially IT, is aligned with measurable outcomes, transformation stops being a buzzword and starts delivering results.