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ManageEngine Survey Finds Overstretched, Constricted IT Departments Struggling with Boardroom "Demand Disconnect"

London, UK - 16 May 2014 - ManageEngine, the real-time IT management company, has announced the results of a survey*, which found almost half (40 percent) of IT professionals describe the current capability of their departments to do their jobs as "stretched" or "overstretched."

When asked what was holding their department back from working more efficiently, an overwhelming 36 percent stated budget constraints, followed by resourcing constraints and limitations on team skills (24 percent and 20 percent, respectively).

Not surprisingly, when asked to describe their current IT budgets, around a third (34 percent) of the respondents claimed their budgets were "stretched" or "inadequate."

Interestingly, a noticeable disconnect becomes apparent when looking at the spending priorities of the IT department compared to that of the boardroom. If given free reign over the IT budget spend, the majority (58 percent) of IT departments would prioritise long-term, back-end infrastructure investment, with virtualisation solutions (24 percent) and additional storage (18 percent) topping the wish list. Whereas the boardroom is pushing for more immediate and visible priorities driven by end-user demands such as upgrades of productivity software - e.g., Office - being the top priority at 20 percent.

With this in mind, when asked what is holding the IT department back from making its preferred investment, budget holder priorities (58 percent) and influence from the boardroom (20 percent) came out on top. Digging further into this disconnect with the boardroom, the survey found that a huge, 44 percent of respondents claimed lack of technological awareness at the board level stops the IT pros from communicating the needs of the IT department effectively. Only 8 percent of the respondents cited their own lack of appropriate business acumen as an issue.

When looking into where the IT department spends a majority of its current time, 30 percent stated rolling out new solutions. Other top responses included responding to, and dealing with, end-user admins (20 percent) and troubleshooting queries (18 percent). The bottom of the list included rolling out company-wide policies (18 percent) and software updates (14 percent).

"The disconnect between the IT department and the boardroom has always been an issue, but this survey highlights that as budgets become more stretched, this disconnect will have an increasing effect on the overall business," said David Howell, European Director, ManageEngine. "Overlooking an IT department's priorities, such as back-end improvements, is not only detrimental to the department's time, but also impacts the efficiency of the business as a whole. The focus on tactical fire-fighting activities, over more strategic, long-term actions, exacerbates this problem even further. Being able to communicate with the boardroom effectively will continue to be a crucial skill for the IT department. In the meantime, using cost-effective and agile IT solutions will help alleviate stretched capacity and utilise budgets more effectively."

*The survey was conducted amongst delegates attending the Service Desk and IT Support Show, Earls Court, London. 100 UK IT professionals were surveyed at the event held between ?29th-30th April, 2014.

About ManageEngine

ManageEngine delivers the real-time IT management tools that empower an IT team to meet an organization?s need for real-time services and support. Worldwide, more than 90,000 established and emerging customers - including more than 60 percent of the Fortune 500 - rely on ManageEngine products to ensure the optimal performance of their critical IT infrastructure, including networks, servers, applications, desktops and more. Another 300,000-plus admins optimize their IT using the free editions of ManageEngine products. ManageEngine is a division of Zoho Corp. with offices worldwide, including the United States, United Kingdom, India, Japan and China. For more information, please visit http://buzz.manageengine.com/; follow the company blog at http://blogs.manageengine.com/; on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ManageEngine and on Twitter @manageengine

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Ahana Govinda
ManageEngine
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