Are tech projects worth it?

UK companies are failing to get the most out of their IT investment because they aren't looking at how successful tech projects are once they're up and running.

Only a quarter (28 per cent) of large businesses measure the success of IT programmes following implementation, according to research commissioned by IT consultancy Avanade.

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Brent Kronenberg, director of enterprise service solution at Avanade, said this means organisations have a limited ability to follow the real cost and impact of new systems.

Kronenberg told silicon.com: "The initial focus of most projects seems to be to get the initial funding and approvals and actually get the project moving.

"There is perhaps a false assumption that once a project has started and finished that it was successful and/or there are no learning or business metrics that can be achieved."

Two-fifths (40 per cent) of businesses also said there is a gap between the "development and operational support functions" of IT systems.

This means the running of IT systems is often not fully taken into account during the planning and building process, leading to rising support costs, slow deployment and poor technical understanding of systems.

Kronenberg said the level of tech investment shows businesses obviously understand the value of IT but they are still failing to realise the full benefits due to a lack of follow-up work.

If this improved, companies could achieve "optimum levels of performance" and see a real return on investment, he added.

The research surveyed more than 100 of the UK's largest businesses - those with at least 10,000 users - across a range of sectors.