IT investments failing to provide returns

IT investments are failing to provide the benefits and returns expected, according to a survey of senior IT executives.

IT directors ranked the importance of aligning IT and business objectives as high at 8.3 on a scale of one to 10, but the respondents only rated their success in achieving alignment at 6.2.

The survey of 250 senior IT decision makers at large multi-site organisations was conducted by network application management company Packeteer.

It found that most organisations spend £2.75m or more annually on productivity applications, including email, ERP and the corporate intranet.

Again, when asked to rank the importance of managing network resources, the IT executives put it at 8.5, but only rated their current success in doing this as 6.9.

Roger Hockaday, director at Packeteer, said that while IT and business alignment is now a top priority, organisations still have significant work to do to achieve their objectives.