Low-Code Platforms Help Ease the Shadow IT Adversity Pain

Managing Shadow IT with Low-Code/No-Code Platforms: The Role of the CIO

In recent years, the rise of low-code and no-code software tools, along with stand-alone automation platforms, has made it easier for business users to manage and automate their own IT processes, often bypassing traditional IT management. While these platforms empower employees and departments, they also bring about challenges in governance, security, and IT control—issues that can lead to conflicts between CIOs, IT managers, and business users. This shift, commonly referred to as “shadow IT,” has forced CIOs to reevaluate their roles and adopt new strategies to balance control with flexibility.

Shadow IT: A Growing Concern

Shadow IT refers to IT projects or tools used within an organization that are outside of the IT department’s awareness or control. With the growing prevalence of remote work and an increase in cloud-based apps, employees often use unsanctioned file-sharing, collaboration tools, and messaging apps. This makes it difficult for IT departments to ensure data security, compliance, and effective risk management.

Carter Busse, CIO at Workato, recognizes that shadow IT is unlikely to disappear. Instead, CIOs must learn to manage it strategically to align it with organizational goals, instead of trying to eliminate it entirely. He suggests that low-code and automation tools can help CIOs keep control over IT architecture while empowering business users to contribute more effectively.

Balancing Control with Flexibility

Low-code and no-code platforms enable businesses to automate processes and integrate systems with minimal coding. Workato, a leader in this space, provides a platform that allows both business users and IT teams to integrate apps, automate workflows, and manage data. By giving employees more autonomy over their tools, the platform can help mitigate shadow IT problems by bringing these decentralized efforts into a controlled environment where governance can be enforced.

Busse highlights that CIOs can leverage low-code/no-code tools without sacrificing control over governance, security, and IT structure. The Workato platform allows IT leaders to set up governance frameworks and ensure that business users have the tools they need, without bypassing critical compliance and security measures.

Low-Code vs. No-Code: What’s the Difference?

While low-code and no-code both simplify software development, they target different users:

• Low-code platforms are generally intended for developers who still need some coding but want to speed up the process with visual interfaces, drag-and-drop features, and simplified logic.
• No-code platforms are aimed at business users, allowing them to build applications and automate workflows without any technical knowledge.

Workato’s hybrid approach allows both IT and business teams to build integrations and automate processes in a way that suits their needs. For IT teams, it offers tools for managing integrations and automation across the enterprise; for business users, it provides the ability to implement process automation without relying on IT resources.

How Workato’s Platform Works

Workato’s platform is based on a cloud infrastructure with connectors for various applications, which help automate workflows and integrate data across systems. Users can create “recipes”—automated workflows that trigger actions based on predefined conditions, like moving data between applications or syncing records across systems.

• Triggers are conditions that start an automated workflow, such as the arrival of a new file or an updated record.
• Actions define the steps to take once a trigger is activated, and can include multiple actions with complex conditions.

By using REST APIs, Workato ensures that different software applications can communicate with each other, automating data flows without needing constant manual intervention.

The CIO’s Role in Managing Automation and Shadow IT

For CIOs, low-code/no-code platforms provide a new way to manage the intersection of IT governance and business-driven innovation. These platforms can help IT departments scale up automation efforts while maintaining control over the processes, ensuring that corporate data and security standards are respected.

Key to this is Workato Aegis, a management tool that offers cross-enterprise visibility into who is using the platform, what integrations are in place, and the associated workflows. Aegis allows IT leaders to set up policies and assign visibility controls to ensure that employees are automating processes securely and in compliance with organizational guidelines.

Conclusion: A New Role for CIOs

The proliferation of shadow IT and the rise of low-code/no-code platforms are reshaping the role of the CIO. Rather than viewing shadow IT as a challenge to be eliminated, CIOs must adapt by embracing these platforms, using them as tools to empower business units while retaining control over security, compliance, and governance. Low-code/no-code platforms offer a powerful solution for CIOs to strike this balance, transforming shadow IT into a collaborative, controlled, and efficient part of the organization’s digital ecosystem.