30 September 2015

SMEs are struggling to make sense of their IT needs, according to a new study by IT orchestration and automation specialist Essensys.

In a survey of 350 UK SME decision makers conducted earlier this year, a third of board directors said they regarded their company’s IT as too complex, and almost the same number agreed it was also too expensive. 

With nearly a quarter of saying that IT is a bottleneck for their business, Essensys says its research has shown a clear demand amongst SMEs for technology that is simpler to deploy, easier to manage and with more flexible payment options.

Twenty seven per cent of business decision makers said IT should be more easily scalable, 20 per cent said it would be better to pay on an opex basis, while 37 per cent of CEOs said they would rather their business wasn’t reliant on IT specialists.

Essensys points out that while businesses want to embrace new technologies, they remain hindered by complex implementation, cost, and a lack of flexibility. It believes companies should expect more from their IT infrastructure. 

Essensys CEO Mark Furness says IT enterprises should reject IT solutions that rely on complex management tools.

“IT should indeed play a key role in leading change and innovation inside organisations rather than be a barrier and a source of frustration,” says the firm’s CEO Mark Furness. “Businesses should therefore no longer accept IT solutions that are reliant on complex management tools, have high maintenance demands and are difficult to scale.”

The study also revealed that  21 per cent of those polled find it hard to stay up to date with new technologies, with 27 per cent particularly saying the cost of rolling out new IT services is too high. Less than eight per cent of those surveyed said they didn’t have any IT frustrations.

According to the Federation of Small Business, the total number of UK SMEs was 5.2 million in November 2014.