Published on the 18/05/2016 | Written by Beverley Head
The perception that the IT team is the ‘Department of No’ has been confirmed by a new international survey of 630 executives, 80 of whom are based in Australia…
According to the survey, conducted by Vanson Bourne and commissioned by Brocade, an overwhelming 94 percent of IT departments had declined a request during the last year. And not just any request – they had specifically declined requests where there was nevertheless a clear benefit to the business.
Asked why they said no, survey respondents said that they were overwhelmed by the challenges of keeping the lights on for existing information systems and ensuring the privacy and security of data. There was also a funding shortfall playing a role.
It wasn’t that the IT team was blind to the benefits of innovation – they acknowledged it would include the elimination of shadow IT, boost competitiveness, hike revenues and cut costs in many cases – it was just that they didn’t feel they could manage anything more.
According to Gary Denman, managing director Brocade ANZ, not only do Australian businesses grapple with legacy platforms that have grown up over 20 or 30 years, in the quest for innovation they have continued to build on top of that legacy creating ever more complex environments.
Australia he said was possibly worse off than other countries surveyed – such as the US, UK, Germany and France – which had already been forced to reinvent themselves post the GFC. “That crisis drove innovation and change.”
While Denman didn’t advocate for an Australian financial crisis he said organisations had to find a different way to support innovation.
Some barriers will prove harder to clear than others. For example 46 percent of respondents said that budget restrictions were limiting their ability to innovate, security was a barrier for 40 percent. Other barriers included the inflexibility of current systems (26 percent) and 34 percent said that legacy technology was both a drag on their ability to meet current needs and their ability to innovate.
“One of the biggest challenges is the network,” said Denman. Developing software applications to support enterprise innovation would have little value if those applications could not then be shared across the network.
He said that just as a DevOps approach had reformed software delivery, a “NetOps” approach to network management could allow iterative innovation at the infrastructure level and support broader enterprise innovation initiatives.
It would, he acknowledged, require a different decision making hierarchy to be embraced, which would allow peer review of change rather than requiring sign off from the top, although proper change management processes and procedures would still be required.
