A recent study has found that IT Managers across Europe are so burdened with the routine maintenance of their existing IT infrastructure, that they are not able to take advantage of innovative IT services that can drive down costs, automate IT management and free up resources that will help drive better business results. The in-depth survey which was commissioned by HP Services and conducted by Benchmark Research, consulted 700 IT managers across eight European countries in late 2006.

Results show IT departments are attempting to be more aligned with the needs of their businesses to help drive better business performance and meet fast-changing business requirements - a trend reflected by 75 percent of respondents.  However, the survey reveals that the majority of respondents are mainly focused on 'making IT work'.  

IT managers responded that their key pressures and concerns were related to the operation of the existing IT infrastructure: security, instability, cost of downtime and 24/7 availability, as well as their capacity to meet user demands and requests from the business.  

Security was deemed the number one concern from a list of 16 IT challenges. When asked where security threats are most likely to originate, more than one third of respondents said the threat was from external hackers and viruses.  Data integrity and identity management were also listed as key threats, a picture that was consistent across all countries surveyed.
Respondents said that on average 32 percent of savings made by their departments would be re-invested back into IT, demonstrating some understanding by the business that progress and innovation in IT is central to achieving long term business growth.