Shadow IT

In Product Led Growth — The End User Era, “Shadow IT” is the negative-framed name for the same power shift that Consumerization of the Enterprise frames positively: “Power is shifting away from executive buyers and we’re seeing the rise of the individual user. You’ve heard this trend called a number of things, both positive (Consumerization of the Enterprise) and negative (‘Shadow IT’).” The term reflects the IT-department’s anxiety about employees adopting their own tools bottom-up, outside official procurement — but the book treats that same individual-user adoption as the engine of Product Led Growth (PLG) rather than a threat to be controlled.

Context: “Shadow IT” is the standard enterprise-IT term for software, devices, and SaaS that employees use without explicit approval from the IT department — historically viewed as a security and governance risk, and reframed by the PLG movement as evidence of genuine end-user demand.

Where this appears

• Product Led Growth — The End User Era — the pejorative label for individual-user-led adoption, paired against Consumerization of the Enterprise as two names for one power shift.