UK companies floundering with no IT strategy
Survey says firms working to 'loose informal plans'
Posted in Management, 7th June 2007 10:09 GMT
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Nearly a third of medium-sized companies in the UK have no IT strategy and a further third work to an "informal loose plan".
That's according to a survey released Tuesday by market research firm Dynamic Markets, which was commissioned by IT service management firm Partners in IT.
The survey, entitled IT Service Management - Is It Worth the Money?, also revealed that only 18 per cent of respondents had a formal IT plan and only 16 per cent planned their IT investments on a three-to-five year timeline.
Fifty-five per cent of business managers in the companies surveyed believe that their IT set-up isn't providing good value for money. With no tangible IT strategy in place, 85 per cent of these organisations are not always buying best-in-class technology and in 65 per cent of cases, the various IT systems (accounts, marketing, sales, etc.) are operating independently of each other.
"For companies of this size, it is critical to be able to retain control of their IT spending and investment," said Paul Cash, managing director of Partners in IT.
Cash blames a lack of IT strategies for the fact that 68 per cent of respondents are finding their IT costs unpredictable and 33 per cent believing that their IT infrastructure costs are too much to maintain.
"In order for IT to truly deliver value to the bottom line of the business, it's imperative for the organisation to get a handle on the technology in which it has invested - both in terms of maintenance and management - and develop a concrete IT strategy to bring the company's technology more in-line with the growth of the business now and long-term," he concluded.
Copyright © 2007, ENN
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COMMENTS
Agreed
Andy:
Completely agree with you on that one. As if small businesses have the time, money and resources to hire some leisure suited marketing head to tell them how they have been such idiots in "throwing away" all this money and how if they bought their latest 2.0 tech; it would make money rain from the heavens.
I see this kind of blabber all day in my line of work (small business IT Manager). Not a week goes by without two or three calls from "consultants" and "integrator" companies telling me how (without ever stepping into our office) they can help us "find hidden value in IT".
Leave us be and let us do our job. Its hard enough trying to justify IT spending to upper management types without having some marketing fluff telling them why IT is currently a waste.
</end rant>
Sounds like a sales pitch to me
""For companies of this size, it is critical to be able to retain control of their IT spending and investment," said Paul Cash, managing director of Partners in IT."
Why? What happens if they don't? Does their existing software stop working - or are you now telling me that the magic systems you asked them to purchase 2 years ago aren't quite as good as you said they were?
Because we hear this bullshit all the time. Some mythical "killer app" - there's no such thing, never has been - or some magic computer that will turn your debt into riches.
People need to stop wasting their money, and only buy new systems when they actually benefit them. Get a real systems analysts in to look at their kit and the way their business functions. Someone who has nothing to gain by recommending upgrades or new software.
Not some dick in a slick suit with a Powerpoint presentation, a lot of meaningless graphs and some well thought out bullshit.
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IT is an expensive implementation, but it is only another tool in the business strategy armament. One can hardly say the company is floundering just because there is no need for such a strategy.
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