Successful businesses often gain a competitive edge by leveraging new technology. IT teams that make incisive decisions about new tools can help streamline operations and maximize profits. New tools are constantly being developed that address real or imagined business problems or gaps in the IT environment.
Before the emergence of cloud computing, tracking IT tools was relatively simple. Employees had to choose from applications that were approved by management and installed by the IT team on centralized servers or workstations. Alternative solutions had to go through an approval process and meet company guidelines before being implemented.
Today, the cloud presents an almost limitless variety of software tools and applications that can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection. This gives organizations a wide range of solutions for virtually any data-processing or business issue. While multiple choices and wide availability may sound appealing, they can lead to tool sprawl that hurts operational efficiency, regulatory compliance, and IT security.
Why Do Companies Fall Victim to Tool Sprawl?
Business professionals typically adopt IT tools to solve specific problems. A marketing department may want an advanced analytics platform to understand market trends and consumer sentiment better.
When a centralized procurement process controls software purchases, consensus on a solution can lead to a company-wide rollout. All concerned stakeholders get access to the same application as needed for their purposes. If the company identifies a better solution, it may replace the previous tool across the organization.
But too many or the wrong tools can lead to tool sprawl, hindering productivity, efficiency, and cost controls. Tool sprawl typically results from one of the following reasons.
- Sprawl creeps in when more than one department or individual can get tools without clearance from a centralized authority. Companies with organizational silos may end up with multiple solutions that address the same problem.
- Mergers and acquisitions often leave existing tech stacks unaddressed, resulting in duplicate functionality. This can become a long-term problem that hinders the comprehensive integration of the acquired assets.
- Teams may add a new tool to solve a problem because it is easier than consolidating or modifying existing tools to reach the same goal.
- Organizations may keep an implemented tool rather than risk operational disruption by removing it. Fewer employees may use this tool because newer tools are more efficient.
What Are the Costs of Tool Sprawl??
Companies may erroneously believe that tool sprawl is just an annoyance. But real problems and costs make it important to control the spread of unnecessary tools across the organization. Organizations experiencing tool sprawl can face the following issues.
Security vulnerabilities
Modern companies must focus on security to protect their IT environment from today’s dangerous threat actors. Tool sprawl affects security in at least two ways.
- More tools in the environment expand the attack surface you must defend. Each tool presents an attack vector that a security team must protect. At a minimum, they must manage more credentials efficiently and patch software promptly to address discovered vulnerabilities.
- The cloud lets teams and individuals adopt tools without IT management’s knowledge or approval. These tools are often called “Shadow IT” and create blind spots for security teams, increasing the risk of breaches. Shadow IT also affects data governance because people can use information inappropriately outside approved channels.
Integration and usage complexity
More tools means more complexity for the IT teams and the organization’s general users.
- New tools typically need to integrate with existing systems to share information and deliver benefits. Teams can struggle to integrate tools efficiently and ensure integrations don’t break as they are updated and patched.
- Users faced with learning additional tools that may duplicate functionality can spend an inordinate amount of time switching between them rather than focusing on the problem they were meant to solve. This wasted time reduces productivity and can frustrate team members.
Data fragmentation
Too many different tools often duplicate records across multiple systems. The ensuing data fragmentation can slow decision-making because no single source of truth exists. Visibility is thwarted by teams needing to query several tools to solve a business problem.
License and vendor management
Organizations must maintain licenses on tools with duplicate capabilities, draining valuable financial resources that could be used more productively. In addition to the immediate licensing costs, companies must manage additional vendor relationships that add little value to the business.
How Can You Mitigate Tool Sprawl?
Companies can use multiple mitigation strategies to control tool sprawl. The following common approaches can minimize the problem of too many IT tools.
- Consolidation: Companies can consolidate single-purpose tools into a platform with broader capabilities. Consider an API-centric integration platform to minimize integration effort.
- Rationalization: Decision-makers should periodically review the IT tool roster to assess usage and business value. Evaluate tools on total cost of ownership (TCO), including maintenance, training, and integration, not just license costs.
- Administration: Organizations should define a clear ownership process to control who can approve new tool purchases and adoption. Include IT and security teams to ensure the new tool doesn’t introduce unexpected problems into the environment.
VAST Can Help Manage Your Tools and Solutions
VAST’s technical teams have extensive experience with a wide variety of on-premises and cloud environments. Combined with our strategic partnerships with industry leaders and innovative technology companies, our deep knowledge of the IT landscape puts us in an excellent position to help our customers optimize their infrastructure. We offer multiple services that will help your business manage its software solutions effectively and minimize tool sprawl.
- Data Center Transformation: Our team works with you to map your vision to advantageous on-premises or cloud solutions that support your business while reducing the costs of unnecessary tools.
- Discovery and Assessment: We perform a comprehensive assessment of your environment to determine which on-premises tools can be migrated to the cloud and which are better replaced with cloud-based solutions.
- Managed Infrastructure: Our managed infrastructure service optimizes cloud or on-premises environments by eliminating unnecessary solutions and controlling tool sprawl.
Get in touch with our team and learn how we can help you reduce tool sprawl and run your business more efficiently.
