Insufficient skilled staff plague IT sector, report says
IT Governance Global Status Report 2008 says IT sector plagued with insufficient skilled staff; Asia tops in implementation of IT governance practices.
A new report by the IT Governance Institute (ITGI) says insufficient IT staff availability, service delivery issues and difficulty proving the value of information technology (IT) continue to plague executives at organizations around the world, technology news site EFYtimes.com reported this week. ITGI is a research think tank on IT-enabled business systems governance for the global business community.
The IT Governance Global Status Report 2008 says that 58 per cent of the respondents noted the problem of insufficient number of staff, compared to only 35 per cent in 2005. IT service delivery, on the other hand, was cited as to have remained the second most common problem, whereas 38 per cent said problems relating to staff with inadequate skills. Also reported is the issue on anticipating return on investment (ROI) for IT expenditures, with 30% of the respondents citing the problem.
The ITGI report also says 93 per cent of respondents said that IT is somewhat very important to the overall corporate strategy — an increase of 6 per cent from 2005; while 32 per cent of the respondents said IT is always on the board agenda, up from 25 per cent in 2005. Moroever, 18 per cent of respondents said the IT department always informs the business about potential business opportunities, up from 14 per cent in 2005.
“The bottom line is that many organizations around the world are needlessly sacrificing money, productivity and competitive advantage by not implementing effective IT governance,” said Lynn Lawton, CISA, FCA, FIIA, PIIA, FBCS CITP, international president of ITGI. “Well-governed enterprises have been shown to provide a better return to stakeholders, and the same goes for governance over information technology. Executives need to direct their IT for optimal advantage, manage IT-related risks and measure the value provided by IT.”
The report also says the percentage of organizations that are in the process of implementing or have already implemented IT governance practices in different regions are: South America, 27 per cent; Asia, 44 per cent; Europe, 50 per cent; and North America, 50 per cent.
The ITGI Global Status Report is based on the findings of a worldwide survey conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in 23 countries from July 2007 until October 2007.
