According to research among 250 UK CIOs and IT leaders, three out of four IT departments are limited in their ability to align objectives with the business strategy. This is despite 79% believing that IT leaders should be strategic as well as technical.
ControlCircle, UK provider of managed and cloud-based services, today released its findings from a major research project commissioned with Vanson Bourne, independent market researcher.
The ‘IT Growth and Transformation’ survey explores challenges within the IT department, IT budgets and alignment within the business, and the challenges of delivering a service to business in an IT environment. 40% of the organisations interviewed agree that their environments are becoming increasingly complex. Looking forward five years, around half believe this will simplify, though still 30% believe the complexity will become more acute.
The research reveals the level to which current IT systems are hindering overall growth and progression within organisations, with 78% claiming that they are hindered by legacy infrastructure.
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56% of respondents agree that their IT department struggles to meet the volume of business cases being driven from within the business. Additionally, 53% respondents claim that the proliferation of multiple infrastructures and applications, along with their associated monitoring tools, is having an adverse impact on service levels and availability.
When questioned about performance throughout the department, from delivering a consistent quality of service to driving efficiencies, in all but one level, less than a quarter of large organisations could report excellence.
For the most part, smaller organisations reported better performance results, although service excellence and the ability to effect budget reductions still only accounted for 59% and 52%, respectively.
On average, less than half of IT budgets are being spent on business growth and transformation projects combined, whilst over half is spent on IT operations, or the day to day running of the business.
‘With so much effort going into ‘keeping the lights on’, and almost all businesses experiencing regular availability issues, it is hardly surprising that IT leaders are often unable to fulfill their ambitions,’ said Carmen Carey, MD at ControlCircle. ‘This report shows that IT departments are facing a range of challenges that are hindering them from delivering consistent quality of service and innovation.’
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