Seven Month Gap Between Business Wants and IT Delivery In UAE

The average time lapse between business needs in the UAE and when the majority of IT decision makers believe they can deliver them is seven months, according to a study released today.

This misalignment, reported by 60 per cent of IT decision makers, carries significant ramifications for the performance, growth prospects and competitiveness of organisations, it was claimed in the research carried out by Vanson Bourne and commissioned by virtualisation and cloud specialist VMware.

“A lag of more than half a year between what the business in the UAE expects of IT and what it can deliver is huge. We cannot underplay the pressure IT departments face in this new mobile cloud era, as they balance a need to maximise value from existing systems alongside the necessity to deploy new technologies,” said Sam Tayan, regional director, MENA, VMware.

For the study Vanson Bourne polled 1,800 IT decision makers and 3,600 office workers in companies with over 100 employees across Europe, Russia and the Middle East in March and April.

IT decision makers from the UAE cited reduced likelihood of company growth of revenue (41 per cent), reduced likelihood of innovation (38 per cent) and increased risk of data theft or loss (34 per cent) as the implications of the gap.

In other findings, 77 per cent of IT decision makers said they were under pressure from the CEO, CTO or board to modernise IT within the next 12 months.

Around 46 per cent of respondents said they had been tasked with moving infrastructure to the cloud, 43 per cent were tasked with implementing hybrid cloud and 41 per cent increasing mobility of the work force, according to the study.

The research found that 44 per cent of IT decision makers recognised smaller competition could move faster in implementing IT modernisation and react faster to market change, leading 67 per cent of respondents to feel concerned or threatened by smaller businesses.

The UAE’s IT decision makers recognised the need to be closer aligned with business objectives (52 per cent) and to recruit more skilled talent (55 per cent) as key to reducing the gap. While 41 per cent cited the need for increased budget, and 48 per cent the creation of a digital officer role.