IT Bosses Cancel, Delay Projects As Workload Rises, SnapLogic Finds
Research from enterprise integration and automation specialist SnapLogic has provided an insight into the growing pressures facing corporate IT departments amid the growing economic downturn.
SnapLogic’s research found that 87 percent of UK IT decision makers said their workload has increased in the past six months. And over half (59 percent) said they either planned to, or already had decreased their IT budget due to the economic downturn.
SnapLogic’s survey conducted in the UK and US found that as the global economic outlook deteriorates, the workload on IT departments continues to rise.
Indeed, SnapLogic’s survey found the top three biggest demands on tech teams’ time included integrating new applications / platforms (48 percent), dealing with problems caused by ‘shadow IT’ (47 percent), and managing legacy systems (40 percent).
And as a direct result of the recent economic downturn and fears of a recession, over half of respondents (59 percent) said they either planned to, or already had decreased their IT budget.
SnapLogic found that just under half of respondents (44 percent) are planning to freeze or reduce/have already reduced their IT headcount as a result of the economy, but there are differences between the US and UK in this regard.
Just over one quarter of UK respondents (29.1 percent) said they are hiring or plan to hire new people compared to over half (68.9 percent) in the US.
These stats suggest that organisations are starting to think about solutions which would enable them to get more from their current investments.
Over 25 percent of respondents in the US and 33 percent in the UK said they are already looking at low code/no code technologies as a way to meet the demands of business and increased IT workloads.
SnapLogic also found that just under half (45 percent) of respondents said that reduced or limited resources would mean their IT department will have to delay or cancel critical work; while 35 percent said it will take longer to complete critical work.
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The survey also found that 35 percent of respondents saying they will have to work longer hours to meet targets / deliver on time, placing further strain on work/life balance that many people are now seeking amid the ‘great resignation’.
Encouragingly, respondents said their relationships with other departments and the C-suite within their business had improved or stayed constant over the last six months. A minority said their relationships had become worse.
Making do with less is a common issue facing many bosses as the moment, but the SnapLogic survey found that IT leaders are managing changes to their workload via the following measures;
Empowering non-IT users to take on routine technology tasks for themselves (57 percent);
Investing in AI and automation technologies to eliminate manual work (54 percent);
Recruiting or training additional staff (50 percent);
Managing workload by deprioritising or cancelling projects (31 percent)
“As inflation continues to tax budgets and the threat of recession in the UK becomes increasingly real, many businesses are facing widespread changes to the way they operate,” said Jeremiah Stone, CTO of SnapLogic.
Jeremiah Stone, CTO of SnapLogic
“These changes are never more present than in the IT teams, where they are expected to deliver more on increasingly smaller budgets,” said Stone.
“Businesses can reap tremendous value from investments in AI, integration, and automation technologies which will save their organisations’ time and money, while also increasing business agility and efficiency,” he concluded.