New research from cloud provider Rackspace has revealed that UK businesses are ignoring new trends in technology in favour of sticking with legacy IT systems.
A survey of over 400 IT decision makers, including 218 from the UK, found that 93% of the UK firms don’t believe they have a cutting edge approach when it comes to IT. Less than a third (28%) consider themselves early adopters of new technology, such as cloud computing.
Rather than being worried about issues such as security or reliability, customers are shunning on-demand computing because they are preoccupied with everyday IT tasks, according to Simon Abrahams, Rackspace’s EMEA head of product.
“IT bosses are weighed down by the day to day activities – three-quarters spend their time keeping the lights on rather than working on strategic activities,” he told CBR. “Security is a bit of a red herring – the fundamentals are the same as they were ten years ago and will probably be the same ten years from now. While security may have been an issues a few years ago, the likes of Rackspace and Amazon are now at least three years old, which is a generation in IT terms.”
Although they are struggling to embrace new technologies, many IT bosses realise the benefit they can deliver, Abrahams said. Nearly half (48%) said that they would like to spend more time adding value to their business but are being bogged down with more general IT tasks. Additionally, 42% claimed that outsourcing would open up new career paths and opportunities.
The survey also found that many firms were concerned about the level of support they’d receive from a cloud supplier. Almost half (41%) said that a lack of knowledge or experience as the biggest concern when calling IT supplier helplines, followed by time taken to access support (36%) a lack of overnight assistance (36%), and rude, unhelpful staff (30%).
