One of the primary reasons that businesses are migrating to cloud-based applications is the prospect of consolidating all their data and operations into a singular environment that can be tracked and controlled. As the cloud has become more popular, however, exactly the opposite is occurring in offices across the globe.

As individual employees and departments initiate their own clouds projects, the result in many cases has been a fragmenting of company data across a wide number of storage services. There’s even a term for this growing problem: cloud sprawl.

A survey of managers by the IT firm CIO Insight reveals that 60% of respondents are concerned about the effect that cloud sprawl may have on their operations. One in four reports that they are unable to track which cloud services are being used by their workers.

Other studies confirm the growing concern over the issue. One of them found that two thirds of CIOs have grave concerns about cloud sprawl. They fear that it will lead to fragmentation of business resources, reducing inter-departmental communication and ultimately threatening the cohesiveness of their companies.

James Peel is a product manager at Opsview, a firm that specializes in monitoring cloud solutions across industries. In a recent interview he said, “Cloud services are incredibly easy to access and can provide multiple benefits to individual users. However, by not controlling the adoption of cloud services, business risk spiraling costs, as non-IT staff simply pay for services via their credit card before charging them back to the business.”

The solution he proposes is to put the IT staff in charge of implementing all cloud initiatives within an organization. “Unless the IT department has visibility into the cloud services being used, it is difficult to keep track of what is being spent, since users aren’t going through traditional channels,” he told an interviewer.

Larry Beck is senior manager of cloud strategy at Avanade, an IT consulting firm. He concurs with Peel. “The journey to the cloud is an evolution that will occur over time,” he said. “IT professionals should start with a clear plan, sound analysis, proven methodologies and practices, and a strong line of communication to the user communities and corporate executives.”

Freedom of choice is normally a benefit to individual consumers. However, for businesses to function effectively, there must be set procedures for how resources are used. As more firms access the power of the cloud, they will need to make certain that the migration strengthens their institutional solidarity and internal communications. Ensuring that occurs will mean encouraging employees to use the cloud to pool information and applications, rather than divide them up. With a common vision and shared protocols, that should prove to be a reachable goal for most companies.

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