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IT Departments Overstretched, Constricted - and Disconnected with the Boardroom

Sridhar Iyengar

Almost half (40 percent) of IT professionals describe the current capability of their departments to do their jobs as "stretched" or "overstretched" according to a new survey by ManageEngine.

When asked what was holding their department back from working more efficiently, an overwhelming 36 percent stated budget constraints, followed by resourcing constraints and limitations on team skills (24 percent and 20 percent, respectively).

Not surprisingly, when asked to describe their current IT budgets, around a third (34 percent) of the respondents claimed their budgets were "stretched" or "inadequate".

Interestingly, a noticeable disconnect becomes apparent when looking at the spending priorities of the IT department compared to that of the boardroom. If given free reign over the IT budget spend, the majority (58 percent) of IT departments would prioritize long-term, back-end infrastructure investment, with virtualization solutions (24 percent) and additional storage (18 percent) topping the wish list. Whereas the boardroom is pushing for more immediate and visible priorities driven by end-user demands such as upgrades of productivity software - e.g., Office - being the top priority at 20 percent.

With this in mind, when asked what is holding the IT department back from making its preferred investment, budget holder priorities (58 percent) and influence from the boardroom (20 percent) came out on top. Digging further into this disconnect with the boardroom, the survey found that a huge, 44 percent of respondents claimed lack of technological awareness at the board level stops the IT pros from communicating the needs of the IT department effectively. Only 8 percent of the respondents cited their own lack of appropriate business acumen as an issue.

When looking into where the IT department spends a majority of its current time, 30 percent stated rolling out new solutions. Other top responses included responding to, and dealing with, end-user admins (20 percent) and troubleshooting queries (18 percent). The bottom of the list included rolling out company-wide policies (18 percent) and software updates (14 percent).

"The disconnect between the IT department and the boardroom has always been an issue, but this survey highlights that as budgets become more stretched, this disconnect will have an increasing effect on the overall business," said David Howell, European Director, ManageEngine. "Overlooking an IT department's priorities, such as back-end improvements, is not only detrimental to the department's time, but also impacts the efficiency of the business as a whole. The focus on tactical fire-fighting activities, over more strategic, long-term actions, exacerbates this problem even further. Being able to communicate with the boardroom effectively will continue to be a crucial skill for the IT department. In the meantime, using cost-effective and agile IT solutions will help alleviate stretched capacity and utilize budgets more effectively."

About the Survey: The survey was conducted amongst delegates attending the Service Desk and IT Support Show, Earls Court, London. 100 UK IT professionals were surveyed at the event held April ​29-30, 2014.

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IT Departments Overstretched, Constricted - and Disconnected with the Boardroom

Sridhar Iyengar

Almost half (40 percent) of IT professionals describe the current capability of their departments to do their jobs as "stretched" or "overstretched" according to a new survey by ManageEngine.

When asked what was holding their department back from working more efficiently, an overwhelming 36 percent stated budget constraints, followed by resourcing constraints and limitations on team skills (24 percent and 20 percent, respectively).

Not surprisingly, when asked to describe their current IT budgets, around a third (34 percent) of the respondents claimed their budgets were "stretched" or "inadequate".

Interestingly, a noticeable disconnect becomes apparent when looking at the spending priorities of the IT department compared to that of the boardroom. If given free reign over the IT budget spend, the majority (58 percent) of IT departments would prioritize long-term, back-end infrastructure investment, with virtualization solutions (24 percent) and additional storage (18 percent) topping the wish list. Whereas the boardroom is pushing for more immediate and visible priorities driven by end-user demands such as upgrades of productivity software - e.g., Office - being the top priority at 20 percent.

With this in mind, when asked what is holding the IT department back from making its preferred investment, budget holder priorities (58 percent) and influence from the boardroom (20 percent) came out on top. Digging further into this disconnect with the boardroom, the survey found that a huge, 44 percent of respondents claimed lack of technological awareness at the board level stops the IT pros from communicating the needs of the IT department effectively. Only 8 percent of the respondents cited their own lack of appropriate business acumen as an issue.

When looking into where the IT department spends a majority of its current time, 30 percent stated rolling out new solutions. Other top responses included responding to, and dealing with, end-user admins (20 percent) and troubleshooting queries (18 percent). The bottom of the list included rolling out company-wide policies (18 percent) and software updates (14 percent).

"The disconnect between the IT department and the boardroom has always been an issue, but this survey highlights that as budgets become more stretched, this disconnect will have an increasing effect on the overall business," said David Howell, European Director, ManageEngine. "Overlooking an IT department's priorities, such as back-end improvements, is not only detrimental to the department's time, but also impacts the efficiency of the business as a whole. The focus on tactical fire-fighting activities, over more strategic, long-term actions, exacerbates this problem even further. Being able to communicate with the boardroom effectively will continue to be a crucial skill for the IT department. In the meantime, using cost-effective and agile IT solutions will help alleviate stretched capacity and utilize budgets more effectively."

About the Survey: The survey was conducted amongst delegates attending the Service Desk and IT Support Show, Earls Court, London. 100 UK IT professionals were surveyed at the event held April ​29-30, 2014.

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According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

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In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

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