The failure of IT projects has become routine and widely accepted, according Indian outsourcing giant Tata Consulting Services (TCS).

A survey of more than 800 senior IT managers in eight countries undertaken on behalf of TCS paints a picture of habitual failure in IT. The research found that on average one in three IT projects fail to meet expectations. And yet 43% of respondents report that management boards accept the problem as the norm.

Despite the litany of failure, more than two-thirds (69%) of respondents said that failing projects continued to receive funding from the management board.

The most commonly cited problems with IT projects were overruns on delivery times (62%) and budget (49%). A significant proportion (47%) also reported maintenance costs were frequently higher than expected – in the UK, maintenance costs accounted for around 18% of the annual IT budget, TCS reports.

But while these headline figures paint a depressing picture of current IT, some perspective is needed. The numbers reporting missed deadlines, cost overruns and the like, provides an indication of common problems in IT projects – that is not to say that all IT projects are pre-destined to suffer these problems. Indeed, the research suggests that two out of three IT projects do meet board expectations – that sounds much more like a success story for IT.

Perhaps more pertinent is the message underlying the research: technology vendors routinely publish self-serving surveys and research, purporting to vindicate their own particular strategies. What is notable in this case is TCS’s marketing message, which promotes the idea of increasing IT performance through outsourcing. This is a clear challenge to the stereotype that dismisses Indian providers as merely offering low-cost, low-level services, as is emblematic of the way the Indian outsourcers are growing in confidence about their ability to win high-value deals.

Further reading

Book review: World Class IT Service Delivery 

The Reuters Offshore Story - how the newswire is developing a global service delivery network

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