NetApp, in conjunction with Vanson Bourne, has conducted a survey of decision-makers in nine countries, focusing on the crucial value IT infrastructures play in today's rapidly accelerating business world.
The survey collected responses from C-level audiences and decision-makers across many different industries, and had 1 400 respondents from Austria, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and the UK.
The results revealed that almost 80% of respondents need decisions to happen faster each year. This is not happening in reality, however, as decision-makers have to wait days, and even weeks, for data results to assist with strategy.
According to NetApp, this can result in shrinking revenue and ground lost to the competition.
"The business world is changing at an unbelievable pace, driven by infrastructural upheaval. But mindsets have not adapted fast enough and companies feel they are falling behind as current infrastructure models fail to deliver the needed results," says Manfred Reitner, NetApp senior VP and GM EMEA.
"These facts are reflected in our questionnaire results and they are very consistent across the countries surveyed - but they are also validated by our everyday experience out in the field, where customers are eager to change to address future growth requirements."
He says that in order to speed up decision-making, IT infrastructure and the associated data in retention becomes either a business enabler or an inhibitor to growth. Two-thirds of those surveyed admitted that the way data is stored affects its validity for high-level decisions, with the highest numbers coming from the UK (85%), Italy (70%) and France (66%).
In addition, respondents identified multiple factors that form barriers to executive decision-making, including complexity of data being held in their IT infrastructures (54%); volume of data retained (46%); business units commissioning non-compliant services (33%) and data privacy issues (33%).
The company said that although these barriers exist, businesses react slowly and are not driving the change needed. In fact, only 28% indicated a significant overhaul of their data infrastructure during the last three years, while 43% have at least made limited changes.
Moreover, only 10% said they have instant access to the data they need on which to base critical decisions.
The negative implications of these shortcomings are not few - 39% experienced loss of revenue and 37% saw new customer potential wasted. Many also recounted being seen as coming late to the game (34%), losing existing customers (32%) or losing to the competition (30%).
Alongside these findings, although 75% complained that their IT infrastructure lacks agility and responsiveness, even more are planning to or have already invested in redeeming technology such as cloud (54%), anywhere and anytime access to data (51%), data mining (49%) and infrastructure renewal (44%).
Ultimately, NetApp says many of these business issues are rooted in infrastructural shortcomings, and that technology can be the remedy.
Businesses can make agility in IT a reality, but different thinking is needed to remove complexity, cost and inefficiencies of old approaches.
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