Companies more comfortable with technology, research shows

Companies around the world are becoming increasingly based around IT and have fewer problems with computing equipment, according to the IT Governance Institute's (ITGI) Global Status Report 2006.

Comparing the results with a similar survey it commissioned in 2003, the ITGI says 21 per cent of those surveyed had no problems at all with their IT, a substantial increase on the seven per cent in a previous report from 2003.

The report also shows 57 per cent of companies now consider IT to be a core part of their future strategy, a rise of five per cent.

However, staffing issues remain one of the top IT problem companies face, with 35 per cent of firms seeing the recruitment of IT staff with the right kind of skills as their main computing issue, only a slight drop from the 38 per cent of the 2003 survey.

Paul Williams, former ITGI president and IT governance advisor at Protiviti, says the importance of staffing issues surprises him.

'It seems there is still great demand for the right sort of skills. It is all about requiring the right sort of aptitudes for today and making sure that resources are available at the right time to work on the right things,' he said.

Other findings in the report show IT outsourcing is no longer considered the best way of solving computing problems, with 45 per cent of US respondents now believing it to be ineffective.

Compliance and security issues have now dropped down the list with only 15 per cent of respondents saying it remained a concern.

This, the report suggests, is because of the effort put into the area by businesses over the past three years to deal with the requirements of legislation like Sarbanes-Oxley in the US and BASEL II in Europe.