Businesses are losing money and jeopardising security to IT sprawl and quick fixes, says Espria
IT Leaders must take action on unchecked technology sprawl and shadow IT that are draining budgets, increasing cyber risks, and complicating their digital environment.
According to a recent study, budgets towards insider risk management have doubled in the past 12 months, with 81% of business leaders looking to secure their internal business infrastructure as geopolitical tensions escalate and remote workforces become the norm.
‘Digital transformation ushered in new possibilities and solutions for computing, but it also introduced a potential for sprawl that burdens IT teams everywhere,’ said Brian Sibley, Virtual CTO at Espria.
‘When faced with an urgent problem, it’s only natural to install quick-fix tools to manage the situation and catch up with competitors, but without considering the long-term effects, this can snowball into an IT landscape that becomes progressively difficult to manage.
‘Without full visibility of every application in their infrastructure, organisations are exposed to cyber risks and potential compliance violations. Now burdened with growing time and security demands, IT teams are tackling shadow IT risks and unused tools that drain resources.’
The shifting political landscapes will bring further cyber inequity and with the predicted UK economic turbulence for 2025, Sibley believes that organisations must simplify their core IT stack now to become resilient against future troubles.
Sibley continued, ‘While businesses cannot control the political climate, IT leaders can control the cyber resilience of their infrastructure, and this begins with a thorough clean-up of the digital environment. A bloated tech stack and sprawling IT landscape will lead to a lack of oversight that allows malware to sneak in through unpatched vulnerabilities linked to unapproved apps and dormant systems no longer in use.
‘Not to mention, the advancements in AI that have broadened the scope and capabilities of cyber threats, enabling more sophisticated and automated attacks. To get ahead of any changing market demands and downturns, businesses should organise, optimise and update their IT infrastructure to remain agile and resilient.
Sibley goes on to describe the benefits of cutting and consolidating technology to reduce costs as well as retrofitting with new solutions that fit the business structure.
‘Areas of IT overlap and accumulation of unidentified tools must be addressed by leaders to eliminate potential vulnerabilities from unpatched software. Instead of overbuying products that overwhelm admins and wastes budget, proactive cost cutting and technology consolidation will contribute to a more resilient infrastructure.
‘Working with a managed service provider can help businesses evaluate any redundant software, optimise licensing fees and identify out-of-date hardware. By conducting a thorough assessment of systems, businesses can then identify the essential systems, implement the best fit solutions, and take the necessary steps to consolidate redundant or unnecessary tools.
‘After reducing tech bloat, teams can improve visibility across systems, allowing for better resource allocation and faster troubleshooting. IT leaders are also in a better cash position to invest in the future path to help the business grow.’
Sibley concluded, ‘Unchecked IT infrastructure can undermine the business’s security and financial posture and prevents the development of the kind of adaptability required to meet evolving economic challenges/times.
‘Without clear visibility of your infrastructure, organisations are leaving gaping holes that must be addressed to avoid serious liabilities such as compliance risks, reputational damage if there’s a breach, and costly security remediation and investment. Solving IT sprawl and shadow IT is a critical step toward a secure and scalable technology foundation. The healthier your business environment is today, the more resilient you will be in a downturn.’
You may be interested in
Critical PHP vulnerabilities: do you know who owns the fix?
When websites and applications sit with different teams and suppliers, the first challenge is knowing who needs to act. Critical vulnerabilities have been disclosed affecting PHP, a technology widely used across websites, web applications and other software products. The technical advice is clear: identify affected systems and apply the available updates. But for many organisations, the first challenge is understanding where PHP is being used, who manages those systems and who is responsible for taking action. To help you identify potential exposure, we have created a PHP Security Checker to determine whether your systems have…
Beyond the Filing Cabinet: What Document Management Actually Saves You
Document Management for Small Offices with DocuWare For many small offices, document management still means a filing cabinet, a shared drive with inconsistent folder names, and a lot of time spent searching for the one contract or invoice somebody needs right now. DocuWare replaces that with a structured, searchable system that sits behind your everyday paperwork. What does DocuWare mean in practice? Giving Office Managers time back For an Office Manager who is often the person holding the whole administrative process together, this is time back. Fewer interruptions to find a document for a colleague,…
Copilot vs. Claude
Why Microsoft 365 Copilot fits every day work A plain-English guide for people trying AI at work: what Copilot does, how it differs from a separate assistant such as Claude and where to start. The short answer Claude is a separate AI workspace. Copilot sits inside the Microsoft apps many teams already use and can work with the emails, files and meetings each person is allowed to access. A separate assistant helps when: Copilot helps when: – You need help creating or developing content from scratch. – The task is focused research, reasoning or code….
Microsoft is changing Copilot billing. Here’s how to stay in control of AI costs
From 1 December 2026, new Microsoft 365 Copilot Business purchases through CSP will come with usage-based billing already configured. At first glance, that might sound like another variable cost for IT and finance teams to manage. But it also gives businesses a practical way to access the next generation of Copilot experiences while retaining control over who can use them, how much they can spend and where that money goes. This matters because Copilot is changing. New experiences such as Copilot Cowork are designed to carry out larger, multi-step pieces of work. That creates more…
Phishing just got personal
AI-powered phishing attacks are becoming harder to detect, with increasingly sophisticated emails bypassing traditional security controls. As a result, organisations are placing greater focus on Human Risk Management, recognising employee behaviour as a measurable cybersecurity risk. SecureLearn, powered by KnowBe4 and fully managed by Espria, helps businesses reduce human risk through continuous security awareness training, phishing simulations, targeted coaching, and board-ready reporting that demonstrates improvement over time.
The Hidden Environmental Cost of Office Printing
Most offices know that reducing paper is good for the environment, but few have visibility over what their printing actually costs in resources: energy, paper, and consumables. A managed print service brings sustainable office printing into focus by measuring what is actually happening, rather than estimating it. Every printer left on standby overnight, every unnecessary colour print, and every cartridge thrown away with usable toner left inside adds up. For a business printing several thousand pages a month, the difference between an efficient and inefficient setup can be significant, both in cost and in environmental…