While many enterprises worldwide continue to strive for the holy grail of agility and adaptability, they are left to wrestle with IT infrastructures that currently allow them to be anything but that. In a recent survey of more than 780 executives in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, Accenture learned the top infrastructure challenges and priorities of senior IT executives in 2006 and beyond. The research cut across numerous sectors, including financial services, communications and high tech, products, resources and government. Seventeen percent of IT executives had a global role; 33 percent had regional responsibilities; and 50 percent had a national role. IT executives included the CIO, IT director, CSO, CTO, Director of Infrastructure, Director of Networks. The size of organization targeted ranged from $250 million to $10 billion and above. Key research highlights include: - If your IT budget falls outside the control of the IT department, you are not alone. Strategic decisions on IT spend at US and Japanese companies are being hampered by decentralized IT budgets, in contrast to European counterparts who can boast up to 80 percent of their IT spend being controlled by the IT department. According to the survey, 45 percent of US companies have IT Infrastructure spend held outside the IT department, while the figure for Japan was 50 percent.
- If you had to forgo a budget increase this year, you are in the majority. An average of 60 percent of respondents worldwide stated they are operating with the same budget or a slight decrease from the previous year while 40 percent had received a budget increase. Executives in France were the notable exception, with 70 percent citing increases over last year’s IT infrastructure budget.
- If your operational challenges are large scale, you are in good company. In five of the six countries surveyed, the top challenges included consolidating and standardizing enterprise-wide IT infrastructure and improving levels of service to the business. Executives in France were again a notable exception, listing their top challenges as more process-oriented (compliance, governance, improved decision making).
- More than two-thirds of organizations surveyed reported an increase in sophisticated security attacks. Organizations in Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom are focused most heavily on network security while French and US business and governments have made identity and access management (I&AM) their top priority.
- Virtualization is most advanced in U.S. companies. While virtualization is nothing new, European and Japanese companies are more hesitant than their US counterparts to adopt it in the near term. Increased adoption of virtualization technologies in the mid-term however will help consolidate complex data center environments, address compliance requirements and enable remote/mobile workers.
- In the mid-term, most European and US companies will use IT to enable business growth. Gone are the days of IT being brought in to solely “fix” things. IT executives are now expected to enable business growth, drive innovation and reduce the costs of doing business. In Japan, executives are focused on reducing IT costs as well as continuing to improve IT performance. Executives in France, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States will not only use IT to enable business growth but also to fuel innovation.
View country-specific report below:
France
Italy
United Kingdom
United States *Germany and Japan will be available in July. |