The news below is revealing and sobering: not only is IT spending going through the roof (hooray!) but who is driving that spend is diversifying and becoming less coordinated.
Presumably good intentions abound but all the same there are likely redundancies, gaps, divergent paths, and unchaperoned and undocumented new rivers being formed.
This begs the question: are you taming the tigers or just attempting to herd the cats? If the latter, when do you intend to stop the madness?
By Chris Burt in The WHIR.
Emphasis in red added by me.
Brian Wood, VP Marketing
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Over One-Third of IT Spending Happens Outside IT Department: CA Technologies Report
Thirty-five percent of IT spending is happening outside of IT departments, according to a study released by CA Technologies this week. This spending is driven by lines of business, and is expected to rise to 44 percent within three years.
The study “TechInsights Report: The Changing Role of IT and What to Do About It” was drawn from survey responses by 1,300 IT leaders for large enterprises from around the world.
The report shows that traditional IT duties like maintaining infrastructure and applications and fixing problems as they arise are the top priorities for IT departments, at 41 and 35 percent respectively. Meanwhile the transformation of technology to corporate-wide business enabler is reshaping the way it is purchased, deployed, and used.
“Software and technology are disrupting business models, creating new businesses from the ground up and even transforming entire industries,” CA Technologies CTO John Michelsen said. “Customers are demanding new applications and a different experience, and employees require new tools to succeed and be productive. As a result, we are seeing a seismic shift in the way technology is seen, purchased, used and deployed across the enterprise. IT departments must evolve from single-source providers to business consultants, brokers and advisors, or risk becoming marginalized in the software and technology-driven economy.”
Despite this, driving new business initiatives and innovative products/services are top priority for only one quarter of IT departments.
IT departments are also not helping their own influence, as only 31 percent frequently share key performance measurements, 27 percent evaluate the impact of changes in investment, and 37 percent measure IT against its key performance indicators.
The growth of shadow IT is both an example of the new way technology pervades enterprises and a risk of IT departments not playing an active enough role in their organization’s technology use.
While historically maintenance activities accounted for 80 percent of IT budgets, the study indicates that development and deployment of new services is now as great a portion, and still growing. IT leaders will have to adapt to influence and guide IT investments, not just manage them.
Cloud adoption in general is one of the factors pushing IT departments away from simply “keeping the lights on,” as spending on outsourced services and business tools continues to grow.
The study is available with registration from CA Technologies website.
