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Even though the majority of respondents in a survey released by Oracle say collaboration between business and IT is key for an enterprise cloud model to succeed, a plethora of barriers remain.

The research, which polled 1,200 technology decision makers in midsize and large companies across three continents, found more than a quarter (27%) of respondents said managing shadow IT is a ‘significant’ barrier to adopting an integrated approach to the cloud, while almost half (43%) say business departments lack understanding when it comes to the need for integrated cloud resources.

Other barriers for adopting an integrated cloud approach, and thus precluding collaboration, were proving return on investment, cited by 36% of respondents, discord between infrastructures (36%), increased cost (31%) and increased security risk (29%).

Naturally, the takeaway from the research is that by using infrastructure as a service – a service which Oracle is more than happy to provide – organisations can collaborate more freely and the divisions between line of business and IT will become more harmonious.

“These issues can be blamed in part on infrastructure that has become too rigid, confused and complex,” said Pascal Giraud, senior director IaaS foundation and cloud platform Oracle EMEA in a statement. “This has led to an unresponsive, disjointed organisation where opportunity and innovation fall down the cracks between lines of business and badly integrated systems.”

Elsewhere, research from Databarracks has found that nearly two thirds (61%) of IT decision makers polled believe their employees regularly sidestep their employer’s security policies. Issues which may go against corporate policy include taking company data off-site, keeping written records of passwords, and fabricating or omitting information on sign-in sheets.

The company added that, despite the rise in ransomware attacks, there remains a “blind ignorance” to enterprise security.