IT managers struggle to balance budgets and workload

ReThink Recruitment produced an interesting survey of IT directors this week, which we think highlights a major problem with the way companies approach IT in the UK. According to the survey of a range of blue chip FTSE 100 firms, two out of three IT directors are expecting their workload to increase in 2010, but around half are seriously worried about how they will deliver results within the timescale and budget they have been given.

The problem is growing too. ReThink conducted the same survey last year, when around 25% of respondents had the same concerns; so this year, further budget cuts have heaped even more pressure on overworked IT departments.

Michael Bennett, director of ReThink, said: “For many IT departments this will be the second consecutive year in which budgets have not kept pace with workload demands.

“The pressure clearly remains on IT directors to raise the output of their departments while in many cases budgets continue to be frozen or cut.

“Many organisations, from blue chip FTSE 100s to SMEs, will have put off upgrading outdated technology as the recession kicked in.

“As these mothballed projects are reviewed again, it is essential that realistic budgets are put in place.”

What makes matters worse it that during the recession, many IT projects were put on the back burner, and recruitment drives frozen, due to a lack of funds. Now, with the economy looking up but budgets still tight, there is a bottleneck of work to be done, a whole raft of staff to bring in, and hardly any money to do it with.

Londoners unaware of new data security laws

A new survey from security firm Cyber-Ark Software has revealed that 65% of London’s city workers are unaware of the implications of serious data breaches under new legislation.

The survey of 500 city workers found that two-thirds of respondents did not know that under new legislation, coming into force on 6th April, businesses can be fined up to £50,000 for serious personal data losses.

Mobile devices represent the greatest risk to organisations according to the poll, which found that 64% of workers carrying consumer data on their mobiles but over half that number - 38% - admitting that they do “nothing” to protect it. In a classic blunder, only half of the respondents use any password at all on their mobile devices, and only 12% encrypt the sensitive information on them.


Adam Bosnian, vice president of products and strategy at Cyber-Ark, said that the problem all boils down to education and training: "People increasingly understand the need to protect their data, but for some reason it is not always top of the CISO's priority list, and it should be," he said.

He went on to add that educating people to be more responsible with data is key, and also that organisations should control privileged users and accounts to avoid data breaches.

Here at Inatech, we couldn’t agree more; human error and misjudgement is one of the biggest risks of the security of systems, and our installations always come with extensive training for staff on new systems.

Oracle Database Vault Increases Security of SAP Application Data

As security still rides high on the list of CIO priorities, Oracle has announced that its Database Vault has been certified for use with SAP applications.

Oracle Database Vault allows organizations to strengthen security and comply more closely with regulations by controlling when, where, how and by whom SAP application data is accessed. This control extends to all users with the Database Vault, including privileged users such as administrators.

Organisations can ensure, using Oracle Database Vault, that users cannot override SAP application security features, thus protecting SAP application data from access using ad-hoc database query tools. This is achieved by establishing protective realms around SAP application database objects to prevent any user accessing sensitive data.

Company confidence in the crunch

The recession has drawn one thing to the minds of business people more than anything else; risk.

It was the careless disregard and disproportionate view of risk, after all, that unleashed the recession in the first place, and now with budgets ever-tightening, it is risk that everyone is trying to avoid.

Over-managing risks, however, can be just as destructive as paying no attention to them at all. Srihari Vedante, CEO of Inatech Solutions Ltd., explained in CEO Today that too much caution can be a killer during a crunch.

“It is becoming apparent,” Vedante writes, “as some businesses turn sensible caution into nervous inertia, that board directors have a responsibility to look beyond the immediate fear that surrounds the global economy and look to energise their organisations.”

This seems simple in principle, but balancing risk is just one of the tasks facing organisations today. Vedante goes on to highlight the melee of responsibilities businesses must meet:

“Businesses today are under greater pressure than ever to perform and innovate. On a daily basis, executives are faced with challenges such as competing for entry into a new, more buoyant market, coping with red tape, responding to shareholder pressure to speed up the supply chain, and trying to find the most cost-effective way to be sustainable.”

It is challenging enough to keep the day-to-day running of a business going, without worrying about risks, and so how can companies ensure that the risk is taken care of whilst their staff concentrate on meeting targets? Vedante considers wisely-chosen partnerships as key to eliminating some risk:

“It is vital that you learn from your partners’ experience – this is not the time to let your suppliers cut their teeth on your project,” he writes.

The emphasis is on efficiency and experience when it comes to partners. This way, businesses can work safe in the knowledge that the services they are paying for are foolproof and cost-effective.

“It is key to select partners who have first-hand knowledge of the type of programme you are undertaking. Anyone you hire to deliver a project must contribute more than you could do yourself, forewarn you of the pitfalls, help you through the hurdles, and suggest shortcuts.”

Further, whilst Vedante emphasises that cutting-edge technology alone is not always the answer to all of an organisation’s problems, business intelligence is an effective method in eliminating risks, spotting problems and improving the decision-making process:

“Business intelligence tools are taking centre stage in decision-making and directors are pouring through a sea of data gathered in order to inform their strategic choices.”

In summary, Vedante’s recession survival tactics are simply to make use of good partners and good data; something Inatech is renowned for providing. Check out the full article here.

Microsoft invests in skills while UK battles recession

While Oracle’s OUG held their annual conference this week, Microsoft has been pushing out new products and investing in European skills. On Tuesday, Microsoft announced its investment of a further £4million in NGOs running community skills training projects in 30 countries across Europe. The investment is part of the company’s drive to create employment opportunities for young unemployed people, the older generation and people with disabilities.

Following on from this, Microsoft have backed the housing of a £20million cloud computing datacentre in Inverness, run by Scottish IT firm Alchemy Plus.

Also this week, Microsoft has launched the latest beta of Windows Vista Service Pack Two (SP2), which became available on Thursday. The code will be available to who join Microsoft’s Customer Preview Program (CPP).

Mike Nash, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for Windows Product Management, said: "The CPP is intended for technology enthusiasts, developers and IT pros who would like to test SP2 in their environments and with their applications prior to final release." On Wednesday, Microsoft released Open XML Document Viewer, a plug-in working within Firefox to allow open XML documents to be viewed within the browser, and which can be used on Windows and Linux plaforms without installing Office.

On the same day, Microsoft announced that it has halved the number of criteria LARs must meet to hit rebate targets, meaning that partners will earn less on volume licensing deals. The new programme will come into effect on 1 January 2009. Simon Aldous, UK partner group manager at Microsoft. “We are simplifying the scheme, halving the number of metrics on which rebates are paid.”

Outside of Microsoft, investment in IT is proving to be a popular choice amongst some businesses in an effort to beat the credit crunch. Red Hat, the IT services provider, reports that it has had a high demand for Linux since the recession began, with its revenues growing 30% year-on-year. Chief executive Jim Whitehurst said: "The downturn is good for open source software. We have an embarrassment of opportunities. In a difficult economy our message sells well."

It isn’t just IT firms reporting the financial benefits of investing in IT. Insurance firm Kennedys and Rowanmoor Pensions are now using the cloud computing model of online services to virtualise its IT operations, and claiming to have saved £350,000 in the process.

All this in one week just makes you realise that even during an economic downtown industry development and the IT market is still going strong. CIO magazine said that now is the time for CIOs to prove their worth which means there really will be some winners in a recession.

Inatech has been working with businesses to find these solutions; CIOs struggling to identify core IT needs for their company should explore the priorities to maximise customer relationships and increase efficiency.