Shadow IT Exists in 86.4% of Companies: Survey of 221 IT Professionals on DX Barriers

May 26, 2026
NTT DATA BUSINESS BRAINS CORPORATION

NTT DATA BUSINESS BRAINS CORPORATION (Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo; President and CEO: Makoto Tokiyoshi), which sells the no-code cloud database "Slopebase," conducted a survey among 221 information systems (IS) managers. The survey focused on the "real barriers to DX promotion" faced on the ground and the "deep divide existing with business departments."

All survey results can be found here:
https://slopebase.pandora-climber.jp/article/category_dx/202605_questionnaire_shadowit.html

In recent years, to promote operational efficiency and "DX (Digital Transformation)," there has been a rapid increase in cases where business departments, such as sales and HR, independently introduce new tools and SaaS (Cloud Services). However, behind the scenes, IS departments are facing new challenges such as "the collapse of management due to the proliferation of systems" and the "wall of data integration."

Against this backdrop, NTT DATA BUSINESS BRAINS CORPORATION conducted a questionnaire survey of 221 IS practitioners regarding the "real barriers to DX promotion" and the "deep divide existing with business departments."

In this article, based on the survey of IT departments and system operators, we will explain and consider the "real barriers to DX promotion" and the deep divide with business departments for each question.

Survey respondents: IS practitioners: 221 people (nationwide)
Survey period: April 17-18, 2026
*Aggregated valid response data, not all response data.

[Survey Targets]
- Number of employees in the companies where respondents work
- Number of people in the departments where respondents work

[Real Barriers to DX Promotion]
First, we asked IS practitioners to what extent shadow IT exists.

- To what extent does SaaS independently used by business departments (shadow IT), which is not grasped or managed by IS, exist in your company?
Approximately 70% realized the spread of shadow IT, with 52.4% answering "I think there are many because it is left to each department" and 15.1% answering "The full picture is unknown because it is not managed." When adding "I think some exist because management is not strict" (18.9%), shadow IT exists in over 80% of companies.

From the perspective of business departments, using their own budget to pay by credit card and start using tools on the same day increases business speed, rather than applying to IS and undergoing time-consuming security checks. However, this signifies the collapse of company-wide IT governance. A situation where IS has no idea what kind of confidential data is uploaded and where harbors serious risks of information leakage.

Next, we asked about account management for each tool.

- To what extent is the setting of accounts and permissions for each system automated upon joining, leaving, or transferring?
Over 70% relied on manual work, with "Manual response except for major systems" (54.2%) and "Almost manually implemented after notification from HR" (24.5%).

Because of the proliferation of systems, it has become difficult to centrally manage (SSO provisioning) all systems with a single ID (such as Active Directory or Okta). As a result, every time a new employee joins, it has become normalized for IS personnel to log into the management screens of dozens of SaaS applications and manually issue or delete accounts one by one—an extremely inefficient and error-prone analog task.

Next, we asked whether accounts of retired employees sometimes remain accessible.

- Do accounts of retired employees sometimes remain on the system (in an accessible state) even after retirement?
"Occurs occasionally due to omissions in communication, etc." (60.9%), "Every time inventory is taken...