Business leaders overlook IT cost savings in favor of security

A survey commissioned by NetApp has revealed that UK business leaders are in the dark about how to reduce business costs through technology, focusing instead on managing security risks through IT.

Despite the fact that 59% of Britain’s “Captains of Industry’ see the current financial crisis as the most critical issue facing Britain, 41% do not feel confident that they know enough about technology to be able to evaluate the options available to improve their business performance.

When questioned about their understanding of IT’s ability to support the business, 74% of board-level respondents claimed to understand data protection and recovery, with 62% saying the same about data loss and security. In contrast, only 25% of respondents claimed knowledge of virtualisation.

In response to the survey, Nick Thurlow from NetApp said:

The findings of this survey would suggest that many business leaders are focused primarily on mitigating risk with technology. If this is the only focus then the strategic benefits and competitive advantage that technologies such as virtualisation can offer might be overlooked. As the economic climate changes and the pressures facing business leaders evolve, new solutions become more relevant to board level directors. There is an opportunity here for those firms that can reduce their operating costs quickly by adopting virtualised data management environments.

The Survey of Britain’s Captains of Industry canvassed the opinions of board level directors of FTSE 500 firms, top 500 industrial firms by turnover and top 100 financial companies by capital employed. The research was carried out face-to-face by Ipsos MORI between 1 September 08 and 10 December 2008 and 100 respondants participated.