Survey predicts the IT headaches of 2011

Outsourcing IT will increase next year but losing control of IT will remain a major concern for IT departments, according to a survey of mid to large UK companies.

The survey of 500 senior IT workers, carried out by IT service provider Bluesource, revealed IT trends and headaches for next year.

IT spending

49% said it will remain the same.

32% said it will increase.

11% said it will decrease.

Time

70% can only employ 10-50% of their time on strategic IT, due to the burden of IT administration.

67% said IT is well-maintained and managed on a daily basis.

27% are not confident systems are managed effectively.

Outsourcing

70% outsource specialist IT administration tasks.

83% rate the outsourcing services they received as average to good.

35% said the biggest barrier to outsourcing is fear of losing in-house control of IT.

Top IT challenges for 2011

Managing storage growth.

Keeping staff motivated and well-trained.

Disaster recovery.

Achieving effective systems monitoring.

Coping with an increasing lack of IT resource time - with increasing workloads.