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Effective IT Report 2010 – Cost reduction was the priority in 2009, and IT strategies that helped organisations reduce their overheads grew in adoption and perceived effectiveness as a result

The Effective IT Report – Information Age’s annual survey that examines which IT strategies have been adopted by readers, and how effective they are perceived to be – has found some IT strategies to be consistently popular.

For the fifth time in as many years, the most widely adopted strategy was having ‘Encouraged/supported remote or mobile working’. Of the 302 IT directors, managers and practitioners – largely based in the UK – who responded to the survey, 77.9% had adopted that particular strategy.

Joining it at the top of the adoption charts were ‘Used videoconferencing’ and ‘Used asset management and helpdesk automation tools’, adopted by 66.1% and 57.7% of the sample respectively (see table).

A better snapshot of this moment in time can be drawn from the strategies that most respondents adopted only in the last year, and those that they plan to adopt in the coming 12 months.

The IT strategy that the largest proportion of respondents had adopted for the first time in 2009 was ‘Reduced IT staffing costs’, with just over a quarter of respondents (26.4%) having done so. Given the economic circumstances that most organisations had to endure in 2009, this was grimly predictable.

Second in terms of recent adoption, as in 2009, was ‘Deployed server virtualisation’, with 21.9% of respondents having applied that strategy during the year. This reveals that despite being the buzz technology of 2005/06, server virtualisation adoption is still unfolding. Again, the cost-cutting nature of this technology explains its continued popularity in 2009.

Third was ‘Formally deployed Web 2.0 technology (social networking/blogs/ wikis)’, which was adopted by a fifth of respondents (20.5%) for the first time in 2009. This strategy was also the highest climber in the overall adoption rankings, jumping from 17th in the Effective IT Report 2009 to tenth this year. The fact that Web 2.0 tools were on an upward trajectory in 2009 can be explained by the relative youth of the technology, and the low entry cost of some such tools.

Perhaps the most revealing adoption statistics relate to respondents’ intentions for the coming year. Organisations are clearly keen to bring some order to the jumble of information they have accumulated: the strategies that respondents are most keen to deploy in 2010 are ‘Adopt a master data management strategy’ (27.7%), ‘Develop an information life cycle management strategy’ (22.0%) and ‘Deploy a corporate-wide business intelligence platform’ (21.4%).

The least adopted strategy, and also the one that fewest respondents intend to adopt in 2010, was ‘Deployed Linux on the desktop’. Indeed, all three strategies relating to open source software (the other two being ‘Deployed open source applications’ and ‘Deployed Linux in the data centre’) languished at the bottom of the adoption rankings. However, desktop Linux aside, open source strategies were found to be especially effective by those respondents who had adopted them.

Effective perceptions

The strategy of having ‘Deployed open source applications’ jumped from being the 11th most effective strategy in 2009 to fourth place this year, with 79.1% of adopters rating the strategy as either ‘effective’ or ‘very effective’. The reason for the jump in perceived effectiveness may be that cost-effectiveness grew as a priority for IT departments during the year.

‘Deployed Linux in the data centre’ jumped even further up the rankings for effectiveness, from 20th in 2009 to sixth this year. This may be explained by the continued adoption of server virtualisation, as open source operating systems can be tailored to virtual environments and remove the complexities of licensing virtual machines.

The strategies most frequently described as ‘not very effective’ or ‘not effective’ were consistent with last year’s findings. Despite its growing adoption, ‘Reduced IT staffing costs’ topped the ‘ineffective’ rankings, rising from third place last year.

This could support the argument that reducing headcount in the IT department may be a destructive strategy in the long term. However, it must be acknowledged that the majority of respondents work in IT, and might be expected therefore to oppose strategies that result in the loss of jobs. ‘Outsourced the IT department’ and ‘Used offshore development/business process outsourcing’ completed the top three ‘ineffective’ strategies.

Just outside that was ‘Used videoconferencing’, with 12.4% of the respondents that had adopted the strategy describing it as either ‘not very effective’ or ‘not effective’. However, the strategy also featured in the top ten most effective strategies. For whatever reason, it appears that videoconferencing is a strategy that divides opinion.

While the economic circumstances of 2009 did not bring about a radical reorganisation of IT strategy – perhaps because no-one had the resources for radical new projects – the Effective IT Report certainly shows that those strategies with a cost-cutting component grew both in adoption and in perceived effectiveness during the year.

This is unlikely to change dramatically in 2010, but the focus on cost may ease a little. When asked how their IT budget was likely to change this year, an equal proportion of respondents (36.7%) reported that it would rise as said that it would stay the same. An unlucky 26.7%, however, see IT resources falling yet further in the coming 12 months.