9 in 10 IT leaders say their IT landscapes have become more complex to manage and maintain

New research from Daisy Corporate Services (Daisy) has revealed 90% of IT leaders at large UK organisations believe their IT landscape has become more complex to build, manage and maintain.

73% of senior IT decision makers said pandemic-related technology investments made to keep operations running are causing IT management challenges, and more than half (57%) said an increase in new technology and applications adds further complexity. Additional cloud services (57%) and software licensing issues (52%) rank as the other key contributors to IT complexity.

The survey of 250 senior IT decision makers at large private and public sector organisations finds that 59% of IT leaders lack complete visibility into their IT infrastructure. As a result of growing IT management challenges, more than three quarters (77%) of IT heads say they are unable to quickly meet the needs of the business due to a lack of internal resources and skills. 

“The IT landscape has changed significantly for businesses in the last five years. Investment decisions were made quickly during the pandemic to support flexible working and to make sure day-to-day operations could continue,” comments Andy Bevan, Head of Propositions and Strategy Consulting at Daisy Corporate Services. “But many of these “temporary” add-ons have become embedded, leading to additional IT complexity. This has created a significant challenge for organisations, with 89% of IT decision makers identifying the need to simplify IT infrastructure management as a priority.” 

Complexity makes cloud migration harder

More organisations today are moving to the cloud to achieve business-wide scalability, as well as greater support for new technology use cases – including artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). Of the IT leaders surveyed, 38% said their organisation’s IT estate is hosted in the cloud, rising to an estimated 50% in five years’ time. However, the complexity of their current IT landscape is the biggest challenge facing organisations attempting to move more of their IT estate to the cloud (50%); followed by data security concerns (46%) and the complexity of a growing multi-cloud environment (40%). 

Because of these challenges, many organisations have ended up with a hybrid cloud environment by accident rather than design, with applications and services running across a mix of public cloud, private cloud, and on-premises platforms. In today’s hybrid cloud world, it is vital that an organisation’s infrastructure is both secure and able to dynamically adjust to workload demands. However, under a third (30%) of IT leaders say their existing infrastructure is “very effective” at dynamically adjusting to workload demands. In addition, 61% of IT heads worry that the growth of AI-related workloads will place a huge burden on their organisation’s IT infrastructure. 

“The IT infrastructure of any business is essential to achieving sustained success. Many organisations are embracing cloud to improve speed, flexibility, and agility, but have found it difficult to move wholesale to the cloud. This is typically because of an overly complex IT landscape, combined with the burden of legacy infrastructure and applications that simply cannot be migrated. It is becoming increasingly clear that organisations need platforms that can manage hybrid environments end-to-end, providing IT teams with the visibility to effectively meet business needs,” adds Bevan.