Just 36% of manufacturers liken their IT systems to a BMW

The firm says that’s the lowest figure for any sector – lagging considerably behind finance (72%) and property (69%). It also finds 7% of manufacturing IT directors stating that their current IT feels like a Rover, while 14% say their’s is like a Vauxhall Vectra – which Connect takes to mean “well past its best, time to upgrade” and “distinctly average and underpowered”, respectively. Facile maybe, but on the positive side, Connect finds downtime is not the issue. Only a tiny number of manufacturers (4%) believe email and Internet downtime are a major problem for them – a far lower percentage than for other sectors, such as finance or retail. Other significant findings include that manufacturing companies spend only slightly less than the national average on their IT infrastructures. Average annual spend on hardware and software for all SMEs for 2007 was £63k, with manufacturing companies coming in at £60.5k. Connect expects that to rise in 2008 by 4.2% though one in ten manufacturers predict that their expenditure will rise by more than 10% next year, despite the recent falls in prices. Says Mark MacGregor, CEO at Connect: ”Manufacturing was one of the worst-performing sectors according to our research. A significant minority (36%) of small manufacturers we spoke to will be spending heavily on technology in 2008 in order to improve their systems, but over half are expecting to keep their IT spend constant. It may be that competition from overseas means that they are having to live with the problems that underperforming technology inevitably brings.”