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Story URL: http://management.silicon.com/itdirector/0,39024673,39122645,00.htm

UK business blames vendors for IT failures
A quarter of bosses say they were sold the wrong product…

By Andy McCue

Published: Tuesday 27 July 2004

Almost half of UK firms admit to wasting money on IT, with a quarter of those business bosses blaming the IT vendors for selling them the wrong products, according to new research.

The survey of over 3,000 CEOs, MDs and business owners by Sage found 43 per cent admitted to wasting money on IT. The main factors cited were actually internal with 39 per cent saying they misunderstood their own needs while 27 per cent wasted time overcoming integration problems.

But the IT industry came under fire from a quarter of business chiefs who blamed vendors for selling them the wrong products - 22 per cent said they received poor levels of customer service. Which might go some way to explaining the findings that bosses turn to friends and family (34 per cent) as the main source of advice about new software products.

Andrew Buckley, director of marketing at Sage, told silicon.com that the IT industry needs to lift its game to gain the trust of the business world.

"There are still a lot of vendors and resellers who take a one size fits all approach. We come across cases where people recommend systems without a customer-need analysis," he said.

Buckley said vendors need to improve the overall level of customer satisfaction by taking a "straight-talking pragmatic approach" with users.

Other results from the Sage Business Heartbeat survey show desktop PCs are viewed as the most important technology by business bosses (29 per cent) and over a third said they personally could not live without their PC or laptop.

The research was conducted by YouGov on behalf of Sage UK in June