IT frustration costs companies more than $100 million a year — with shadow IT the only user solution

Employees are losing more than a month of work each year to digital workflow inefficiencies and are downloading hundreds of unauthorized apps to get their jobs done, study says.

The average large enterprise lost $104 million to digital inefficiencies in 2024, driven by productivity losses connected to employee IT frustrations and hundreds of ghost apps flying under the radar, according to a new study.

At issue is the complexity and number of applications employees must learn, and switch between, to get their work done. As a result of this quagmire, employees at large enterprises lost an average of 36 workdays to IT roadblocks, according to the study from WalkMe, a digital adoption platform vendor.

Meanwhile, many enterprise employees turn to unauthorized apps and software to do their jobs, the study says. While the average large enterprise believes it uses 37 apps, employees actually use 625 apps, including more than 170 AI apps, according to data collected by WalkMe. This shift to shadow IT leads to several problems, including the underuse of enterprise apps.