Technology is no longer just the concern of IT. In an increasing number of companies, business departments are now taking the reins of some of the applications they use on a daily basis. A paradigm shift that raises a strategic question: should application responsibility be delegated to the relevant divisions?
For a long time, the dominant model was one of centralized management by IT, ensuring consistency, security, and cost control.
But this model shows its limits:
- Long delays for each development or business request.
- An IT department often overloaded, forced to prioritize emergencies.
- A lack of understanding of the operational subtleties specific to each department.
- Growing frustrations among users, who sometimes turn to solutions outside the official framework (shadow IT).
It is in this context that a more distributed model emerges, where IT plays a supporting role, and the business units become fully responsible for the tools they use.
A rising model: the "business ownership" of apps
In many organizations, digital tools have become so numerous and specialized that it is becoming difficult for centralized IT to manage everything effectively. As a result, some companies are adopting a new approach where each division (HR, finance, operations, etc.) is responsible for all or part of its own applications.
This evolution is based on several observations:
- The business units know their needs better than IT.
- Decision cycles are shorter if teams are autonomous.
- No-code/low-code solutions make customization more accessible.
- IT can focus on governance, security, and infrastructure.
Giving more digital autonomy to professions means betting on collective intelligence and proximity to the needs on the ground.
But like any strategy, this one has its limits.
A model that is too distributed can generate:
- A loss of overall vision on digital processes.
- A proliferation of redundant or incompatible tools.
- Security risks if best practices are not followed.
- A difficulty in maintaining consistency between the different divisions, particularly in the event of a change in scale or a merger.
Therefore, the challenge is to find a balance between autonomy and governance. IT must remain the conductor of the digital ecosystem, while allowing the business units the freedom to play their own part. Success relies on the quality of dialogue, the clarity of the framework, and the ability to co-create useful, safe, and scalable solutions.
Benefits of decentralizing IT management?
- Greater flexibility and responsiveness: local units can adapt more quickly to the specific needs of their activities without waiting for centralized approvals.
- Better understanding of business needs: teams close to the field make more relevant decisions regarding application management.
- Reduction of bottlenecks: by alleviating the load on the center, we avoid delays related to the prioritization of requests.
- Increased accountability: local teams are more involved and feel like stakeholders in digital performance.
- Innovation potential: autonomy encourages the experimentation of new solutions and technologies tailored to each business reality.
- Business alignment: the tools are chosen, configured, and used by those who need them the most.
- Increased responsiveness: no more waiting months for an update or a new feature.
- Empowerment: each department becomes a player in its digital performance.
- Valuation of internal talents: some job profiles become digital referents, capable of managing the tools on a daily basis.
Disadvantages and potential pitfalls
Delegating does not mean letting go. Without safeguards, this approach can generate:
- Lack of standardization: the overall coherence of systems and practices can become weakened.
- Security and compliance risks: insufficient governance opens the door to vulnerabilities.
- Coordination complexity: synchronizing efforts between divisions becomes more difficult as autonomy increases.
- Higher costs: managing decentralized environments can lead to redundancies, additional costs in licenses, support, or management.
It is therefore crucial to establish a clear framework.
IT as a guarantor of governance and coherence
In this new distributed model, the role of IT is not weakened — it is redefined. Far from abandoning the field, IT teams become the architects of digital governance. Their mission: to establish a clear framework, avoid silos, ensure security, and maintain the interoperability of systems. They provide the tools, standards, and expertise necessary for divisions to innovate without compromising overall stability or compliance. In other words, IT becomes a strategic partner, more than just a service provider. This balanced collaboration between business autonomy and central oversight allows for a combination of agility and risk management.
A common infrastructure for controlled autonomy
If businesses are gaining autonomy, it is primarily thanks to a common infrastructure established by IT. This provides the essential building blocks: secure platforms, cloud environments, identity management, low-code/no-code solutions, connectors between applications... To frame this autonomy, IT also provides blueprints – preconfigured and validated application models – that allow divisions to quickly create solutions while adhering to security, performance, and integration standards. This technical foundation is complemented by deployment automation tools, ensuring smooth, consistent, traceable, and reversible production releases, with minimal dependence on technical teams. Thus, businesses can innovate effectively, without reinventing the wheel, while IT maintains a controlled framework. The result: scalable, secure solutions that comply with internal and external requirements, and are perfectly integrated into the overall information system. It is this “enable & control” approach that makes effective autonomy possible, without deviations.
Mastering costs: a key challenge of decentralization
IT decentralization is not only about technical or functional management: it also involves an evolution in budget management. Each division, now more autonomous in its technological choices, must also bear the costs.
This implies:
- a local awareness of the generated expenses (licenses, cloud consumption, support, maintenance),
- a clear breakdown of costs by unit or application,
- a budgetary accountability aligned with actual uses.
To achieve this, it is essential to implement a FinOps approach (Finance + Operations), which means a financial management of the cloud and digital resources based on usage.
Modern platforms today allow:
- to track consumption by application or user,
- to automatically allocate costs by business unit,
- to detect budgetary deviations,
- to promote a culture of digital sobriety.
The implementation of a FinOps model is not just a financial issue: it is a strategic lever to strengthen local accountability, avoid waste, and align IT spending with the actual priorities of the company.
Some keys to successfully transition to a decentralized model
Clarify the roles
IT retains responsibility for security, technical consistency, and overall architecture. The business units, on the other hand, take charge of daily usage, configuration, and functional optimization of the applications. This clear division avoids gray areas of responsibility.
Provide an effective toolkit: Autonomy is not improvised: it is based on solid foundations. IT must provide the divisions with a robust and ready-to-use toolkit:
- Secure platforms and tools,
- Validated deployment blueprints or templates,
- Connectors to interface with the existing IS,
- Automation tools for deployments and monitoring.
The objective: to enable businesses to implement solutions quickly, efficiently, and securely, without relying on every line of code or manual deployment.
Support the development of skills:
Delegating is not enough. It is also necessary to train the business teams in their new role: understanding application life cycles, adhering to security and compliance rules, managing functional changes, coordinating with other departments, etc.
Setting up a support
But training alone is not enough: IT must also provide active support to the divisions during the initial implementation and ongoing maintenance phases. This support is essential to avoid configuration errors, ensure the sustainability of the solutions put in place, and strengthen collaboration between the business units and technical experts.
Ensure interoperability:
The tools implemented must be able to easily integrate with the rest of the information system. IT must ensure to provide integration standards and encourage the use of consistent APIs or middleware.
Establish a simple but active governance:
Without falling into bureaucratic heaviness, it is essential to monitor the evolution of this distributed ecosystem:
- Maintain an up-to-date application mapping,
- Track performance and usage indicators,
- Regularly bring together stakeholders in a steering committee,
- Implement light audits to ensure compliance and the sustainability of solutions.
A key role in decentralization: the Business Product Owner
The success of this approach often relies on a discreet yet essential link: the business referent or product owner.
This role — sometimes halfway between advanced user, coordinator, and project manager — helps to ensure the link between operational needs, technical constraints, and the ongoing monitoring of applications. This role deserves to be valued, recognized, and formalized.
Conclusion: autonomy and coherence, a subtle balance
Giving more digital autonomy to professions is betting on collective intelligence and proximity to the real needs on the ground. But like any delegation, it only works if it is clearly framed. The role of IT is evolving profoundly: it is no longer just about "doing," but about enabling, securing, and connecting.
However, this strategy has its limits. A model that is too distributed can generate:
- A loss of overall vision on digital processes,
- A proliferation of redundant or incompatible tools,
- Security risks if best practices are not followed,
- A difficulty in maintaining coherence between divisions, particularly in the event of a change in scale or a merger.
Therefore, the challenge is to find a balance between autonomy and governance. IT must remain the conductor of the digital ecosystem, while allowing the business units the freedom to play their own part. Success relies on the quality of dialogue, the clarity of the framework, and the ability to co-create useful, secure, and scalable solutions.
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