Simplifying IT Leads to Better Business Outcomes: IDC
New Delhi, India, July 9, 2014: A new study from IDC, a leading provider of global IT research and advice, shows that IT complexity leads to lower profits and curbs an organization’s ability to innovate and grow. Companies in the study who reduced IT complexities were able to realize average annual benefits of $83 million. They also achieved other benefits including faster time to market, better customer service, and the ability to reallocate IT staff to more strategic projects.
News Facts
- Available today, a new IDC White Paper, sponsored by Oracle, titled “Simplifying IT to Drive Better Business Outcomes and Improved ROI”(June 2014) outlines the challenges that IT complexity creates in today’s organizations.
- For the IT department, challenges include increased operational costs, reduced staff productivity and reduced ability to provide high levels of service to the business.
- For the business, IT complexities lead to lower profits, less innovation, reduced customer and user satisfaction and less competitive advantage.
- Companies who participated in the study were able to realize annual benefits of $3,610 per user through their IT simplification initiatives. The average company studied has approximately 23,000 IT users, which translates into annual benefits of $83 million.
- The study also found that IT simplification drives a number of non-dollar benefits, including improved user productivity, faster time to market, and better customer experience.
- Efforts to simplify IT included migrating to the cloud, investing in engineered systems, replacing legacy systems with modern applications, and other steps.
- Most participating organizations found that to truly simplify IT, they needed to replace their outdated infrastructure with a simpler, consolidated, modern foundation that was better equipped to address today’s demands.
IDC’s Group Vice President, Software Business Solutions, Michael Fauscette, said, “Many companies today are overwhelmed by the cost and competitive disadvantage that IT complexity can create. By simplifying their IT infrastructure, organizations can devote more of their focus and resources to delivering innovation, driving productivity and keeping customers happy.”
Oracle Senior Vice President and Chief Communications Officer Bob Evans said, “From the boardroom to the IT department, it is clear that battling complexity is a never-ending challenge organizations today must address. Many of our customers are tired of doing all the integration work themselves, so they are investing in systems that are engineered to work together. Or they’re migrating to cloud services that work well with each other. Those companies are spending less time and money on integration and maintenance, and more on innovation, so they are better positioned to compete and succeed.”