According to a recent Dimension Data survey, 58 percent of companies have the appetite for a service-centric approach to IT delivery, despite the majority struggling to make a business case for adoption.
The survey, conducted by Ovum, revealed that most CIOs have a good understanding of the need to change from traditional methods of IT delivery to a model that is transparently priced and tracked to actual usage.
Despite this, only 32% of respondents stated that they had secured funding to support their transformational plans, while 31% believe the low profile of IT was a key reason for this lack of funding, and 30% said it was due to the cost of change.
Roy Illsley, principal analyst at Ovum Software, said: "Today’s CIOs are tasked with steering their IT departments through a major period of transformation. This involves completely reshaping the way IT services are delivered, managed and charged for across the business.
"Our research clearly shows that CIOs thoroughly understand and support this change, but often lack the tools and support to make it happen. To overcome these challenges, we expect to see IT departments assuming a much more ‘federal’ role, where they utilise the capabilities of third party service providers to scope and deliver more accountable and transparently-priced service models."
The research shows that most CIOs have a good understanding of the need to change from traditional methods of IT delivery to a model that is transparently priced and tracked to actual usage.
Despite this, 32% of those enquired stated they had secured funding to support their transformational plans, while 31% believe the low profile of IT was a key reason for this lack of funding, and 30% said it was due to the cost of change.
David Leyland, Head of Business, Next Generation Data Centre, Dimension Data UK & Ireland, said: "Ovum’s research shows that UK CIOs see considerable value in moving towards a service-centric IT delivery model. Not only will this allow services to be delivered in a more nimble, cost-effective and accountable way, it will elevate the role of their IT departments, which will be in a stronger position to drive, rather than just react to, business change."
72 percent of those surveyed said they were unable to articulate the value of the services they deliver to their line-of-business customers, with just 17 percent stating they were capable of comparing the costs of the services they deliver with those offered by third party suppliers or other industry peer groups.
"Today, the data centre underpins an enterprise’s entire IT operations, so any IT transformation process needs to start there. Our new Data Centre Development Model has been designed to help CIOs architect change, and make their ambitions for service-centric IT a business reality," Mr Leyland added.
CIOs also expressed concerns about a number of technical obstacles impacting their ability to move to a service-centric approach to IT.
Exactly half of respondents said a lack of relevant skills was one of the top three issues holding up change, with CIOs worried about the costs associated with hiring and re-skilling staff.
Some 46 percent said difficulties associated with managing new and old environments was one of their top three concerns, while 44 percent stated it was the complexity of integrating these new charging models with legacy systems.
The research project, entitled ‘Why next-generation data centre technology is needed to adopt service-centric IT delivery’ was conducted between January and February this year and surveyed CIOs at 100 national organisations employing more than 1,000 staff.
