ARMONK, N.Y., Jan. 4, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Many corporate IT
leaders say their organizations are not prepared for the future IT
needs of the business and nearly all are moving to advance their
transition to cloud infrastructure, according to a new IBM
(NYSE: IBM) survey of leaders
at mid-sized and large companies in the
United States and United
Kingdom.
Of the 380 CIOs and CTOs who participated in the survey, 60% say
their company's IT modernization program is not yet ready for the
future, according to the recently completed The State of
IT Transformation Study conducted by the Managed
Infrastructure Services unit of IBM's Global Technology Services
division. Nearly a quarter of CIOs and CTOs (24%) surveyed say
their company is just starting its IT modernization journey or has
yet to begin modernizing, with about a third surveyed saying they
are still in the midst of transformation.
As a result, more than 95% of IT leaders surveyed said they are
looking to adopt public, hybrid or private cloud strategies. Of
those, many are moving at an aggressive pace -- the study reveals
that 53% of respondents are aggressively pursuing a public cloud
strategy, 48% a hybrid cloud strategy and 45% a private cloud
strategy.
"Our clients are looking to accelerate IT modernization by
leveraging cloud models - both public and hybrid, data, AI,
automation and other key technologies to help shape, scale and
manage more effectively massive, complex, global architectures,"
said Archana Vemulapalli, General
Manager, IBM Infrastructure Services - Offerings and CTO. "In this
rapidly changing digital business environment, organizations can
bring in the right technology and the right partners to help
aggregate, integrate, build and maintain a scalable digital
business, while also enforcing effective governance."
The pressures on IT infrastructures brought on by the COVID-19
pandemic have further accelerated the need for cloud
infrastructure, professional skills development, and security
upgrades, the survey found. More than 60% of technology leaders
surveyed say they expect increased demand for cloud infrastructure
to be permanent.
Even as IT leaders are feeling increased urgency to accelerate
their organizations' transformation, migrating to a multi-cloud
environment can present significant challenges to organizations
with legacy applications running large data pools.
What's more, many surveyed technology leaders are not sure they
have the right teams in place. A full 40% of survey respondents do
not feel their teams have the right skills to fully meet their IT
ambitions, and more than three in four surveyed say they will rely
more on trusted partners that can provide managed infrastructure
services.
Most CIOs and CTOs (67%) surveyed cite the need for increased
infrastructure flexibility as driving the digital transformation,
followed by the need for competitive advantage (61%), cost savings
(58%), increasing globalization (54%) and meeting client demands
(45%).
While the majority (60%) of CIOs and CTOs surveyed say their
company's IT modernization is not yet ready for the future, the
study revealed significant differences in the U.S. and U.K.
markets. For example, while approximately 56% of U.S. respondents
say they are aggressively moving their IT infrastructure to hybrid
cloud, only 38% of respondents in the U.K. describe their approach
as aggressive. And while 56% of CIOs/CTOs surveyed in the U.S. say
their IT infrastructures were completely prepared for the business
changes brought on by COVID-19, only 23% of U.K. managers surveyed
felt as prepared.
Methodology
Between November 19th and December 1st, 2020, the Managed
Infrastructure Services unit of IBM's Global Technology Services
division surveyed 380 CIOs and CTOs at mid-sized ($/£50 million -
$/£999 million in annual revenue) and large corporations ($/£1
billion + in annual revenue) in the
United States and the United
Kingdom (210 in the U.S., 170 in the U.K.). The survey was
conducted online by Teneo Research.
Media Contact
Clay
Helm
IBM Media Relations
Clay.Helm@ibm.com
View original content to download
multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ibm-study-majority-of-surveyed-companies-are-not-prepared-for-it-needs-of-the-future-say-us-and-uk-tech-leaders-301195983.html
SOURCE IBM