Business-Owned Applications (BOAs) is the general term for all applications used by the business units that are developed and managed completely outside the control of IT departments.

Why do BOAs exist? IT departments have neither the budget nor the time to develop and maintain applications for all business needs. With limited resources, they have to focus on bigger projects first and prioritize application requests coming from business units accordingly. When their needs cannot be met by IT departments in a timely manner, business units have no choice, but to create their own applications.