IT is costing companies millions

Increasingly complex legacy IT systems are locking companies into a cycle of spiralling costs and inefficiency, according to research commissioned by BT. The research, carried out by Bathwick Group, shows that poor information management and legacy system maintenance represent massive costs. But it also shows users reluctant to implement modern, standards-based, infrastructures – despite 61% of respondents planning on reducing the number of vendors, hardware types and operating systems they support. Its findings are echoed by a report from the Leading Edge Forum (Computer Sciences Corp’s independent research arm) which finds more than two thirds of IT resources are being spent on low value IT work – and suggest that this is posing long term risks to businesses. According to BT, the main problem appears to be current procurement processes that don’t support the strategy – with more than 72% in fact continuing to buy some, or all of their technology, on a per-project or fit-for-purpose basis. Gary Bullard, managing director, BT UK Major Customers, says: “Despite many years of recognising that complexity is the enemy of productivity and cost reduction, there is a clear lack of joined-up thinking on how to address the problem… They’ll never get the return they’re looking for until they properly converge all the elements.” Meanwhile, Leading Edge takes the other view, insisting that there is a pressing need to clean up old systems that are often poorly documented and hard to maintain. However, it too worries about the time and resource wasted. “IT has not always been as open as they should have been at delivering hard messages to CEO and CFO level executives on the need to invest in cleaning house,” says research associate Kirt Mead. “But now, we are reaching the point of no return. The reality is that many IT departments are struggling to cope, and this has serious implications in terms of future enhancements.”