HR Versus IT: Rogue SaaS Applications

One of the benefits associated with greater mainstream acceptance of SaaS is that it reduces the conflict between HR and IT. Business leaders in many different departments are often tempted to implement SaaS solutions without input from IT. That’s because the process of vetting software can seem to take forever. When strategic decision makers get tired of waiting around, they may move forward on their own. According to survey results floating around the blogosphere, IT often has no idea that managers are going behind their backs to contract with SaaS vendors. As you can imagine, when a CIO finally catches on to the presence of these “rogue software applications” this doesn’t go over well.


Why HR Might Circumvent IT

In many HR departments, just getting through the day-to-day pile of work is hard enough. Lobbying for support from IT to get new software implemented can take a lot of time and effort. Often, it seems that any suggestion regarding software improvement that doesn’t originate in IT is summarily rejected. Plus, HR may have a very small budget to spend on upgrading their processes. This makes the use of SaaS applications that don’t require IT involvement very appealing. SaaS vendors know this and will often use it as a selling point for their products.

Pitfalls of this Approach

When an HR director decides to go rogue and sign an SaaS vendor contract behind IT’s back, there may be serious problems ahead. A back door approach to implementation does nothing to strengthen collaboration between HR and IT. That may be bad news later when events transpire that lead to the discovery of the maverick software. This can happen if:

• HR realizes after the fact that the SaaS application requires customization to make it work for their organization

• The application interferes with other company software systems

• The software needs to be integrated with other, existing HRIS applications to make it really useful

• The vendor did not provide adequate security or data backup services and critical employee data is compromised

It may be easier to ask forgiveness than permission. But no HR executive really wants to have to go, hat in hand, to IT for help solving a problem with an SaaS application that IT didn’t approve in the first place. At Emerald Software Group, we encourage HR and IT to work together. We’ve got the expertise to speak their language as well as yours – so you have someone in your corner at the negotiating table.