Should IT Departments Embrace being Hosting Providers?

Over the past few months, I’ve spoken to people across a variety of companies, and one thing has become quite obvious: with today’s tooling, employees are eager and able(!) to build their own applications. Whether it’s a small script to automate a tedious task or a full-fledged web application to solve a very specific problem, they’re motivated to create solutions – both in their personal time (and often even on their own personal expense) and, increasingly, in a business context.

But there’s also a pattern that I recognized: There usually is no process and environment where people can simply deploy their applications in a business context. Those applications are built with great enthusiasm – an enthusiasm that you wouldn’t even create with cool company events – only to hit a wall when it comes to deployment. Employees either lack the infrastructure to run their applications, face weeks of approvals, or hit unexpected cost barriers – all of which kill innovation and drive shadow IT. The result? Wasted potential, security risks, and frustrated teams that could be building solutions for your business.

What if they also take the role of a hosting provider

This got me thinking: What if IT departments expanded their role? Instead of acting purely as a service provider for infrastructure and/or implementation, what if they also take the role of a hosting provider? What if they channeled this energy and provided a platform where employees could safely deploy their applications, turning shadow IT into visible, manageable, and secure IT?

[…]

#Meme Mittwoch

Das Erlebnis, ein Callcenter anrufen zu müssen, ist legendär (schlecht).
Besser aufgestellt sind Unternehmen, die ihrem Service mit #KCS das kollektive
#Wissen der Organisation zur Verfügung stellen können. Hier gibt es schnellere,
bessere, konsistentere Antworten. Und #Selfservice.

Как мы перестали размножать BIRT‑шаблоны и собрали блочную платформу self‑service генерации страховых полисов в PDF

Когда документов и партнёров стало много, модель «один кейс — один шаблон» начала мешать даже простым правкам. Рассказываю, как мы вынесли композицию, версии и публикацию в отдельный backend-слой поверх BIRT, чтобы бизнес мог менять PDF-полисы без постоянного участия разработки.

https://habr.com/ru/companies/alfastrah/articles/1032464/

#BIRT #PDF #генерация_документов #шаблоны #Java #Spring_Boot #версионирование #конфигурирование #selfservice #страхование

#Meme Wednesday

Surveys show that customers like to use #SelfService options if they help them find solutions faster and more easily. Lengthy editing processes are not helpful in this regard.

#Meme Mittwoch

Umfragen zeigen, dass Kunden gerne auf #SelfService-Angebote zugreifen, wenn sie dadurch schneller und einfacher zu Lösungen gelangen. Langwierige Redaktionsprozesse sind dabei nicht hilfreich.

Amazon Favours the Physical Stores of Whole Foods Market Over the Chains of Go and Fresh

https://csc-behaviour.com/2026/04/24/amazon-favours-the-physical-stores-of-whole-foods-market-over-the-chains-of-go-and-fresh/