As pressure to deliver crucial IT implementations increases, the speed of data centre decision making is slowing down

London, 6th March 2014

The pace of data strategy decision making is slowing down, with potentially significant business consequences, states new independent research commissioned by Colt, the information delivery platform. Whilst technology deployment is getting easier, the results show that European CIOs find it harder to devise data centre strategy than they did 12 months ago. The findings show longer planning cycles for strategic and tactical information delivery and data capacity uncertainty amongst European IT Directors.

503 online interviews were conducted among IT infrastructure decision-makers in the UK, France, Germany and The Netherlands. The research found that:

62% of businesses experiencing a change in planning cycles see those cycles extending. These numbers fluctuate to some degree across regions (UK 56%, France 73%, Germany 51%, Netherlands 76%)
Only 38% of decision makers across Europe state that planning cycles are contracting
63% of respondents also admit to capacity planning errors over the past 12-24 months. However, these numbers remain relatively constant across each European region (66% UK, 63% France, 64% Germany, 56% Netherlands)
“Businesses across Europe are feeling the impact of seismic change in the way that technology impacts their day-to-day operations. Globally significant macro trends – driven by technology – are fundamentally impacting their business operations. Social interaction, mobility, cloud, and information (big data) are at the forefront of many fast-growth organisations,” said Matthew Gingell, Director, Colt Data Centre Services. “The data centre should be the fulcrum on which the technology-driven enterprise exists. But worryingly, we are seeing data centre decision making processes slow down at a time when they need to be quick and efficient.”

The research highlights ‘Four Forces of Data Centre Disruption’. These Forces challenge the pace of the data centre’s ability to support organisational needs and the ability for data centre managers to  prioritise challenging business and IT drivers. These forces are:

Business transformation
Data location & decentralisation
Energy management
Risk & compliance
The Four Forces of Data Centre Disruption impact the ability for the business to plan efficiently (time delays) and plan effectively (capacity errors). Factors surrounding energy management, data location, business transformation and risk & compliance are more prevalent in companies that have made capacity errors or which have extended planning cycles.

Matthew Gingell, concludes, “Whilst each of the Four Forces is considered a challenge by the majority of businesses as a standalone issue, in combination they have a tangible impact on decision making, planning and responsiveness. As an industry we need to provide the tools and information which enable end users to make data strategy decision efficiently and effectively. The advantages offered by faster more flexible deployment capabilities are being undermined by the breadth and scale of issues requiring business and IT alignment. It is the industry’s role to simplify these issues and enable transformation change to occur within the data centre. Failure to balance these converging ‘Four Forces’ will directly lead to a failure in business performance.”