UK IT managers spend too much time 'fire fighting'

Research claims excessive support is damaging the value of IT to the business

IT directors believe fire fighting takes twice as long as it should

Two thirds (62 per cent) of UK IT managers spend more than a day a week on ‘fire fighting’, which is impacting on their ability to deliver strategic IT for business gain, research shows.

Over a fifth (22 per cent) of IT managers class their role as primarily supporting their IT infrastructures, while three quarters (76 per cent) think this time is negatively affecting the value of IT within their business, says the Microsoft-commissioned survey.

The research says IT mangers believe they are currently spending twice as much time fire fighting as they should be, consuming up 30 per cent of their time as opposed to an ideal time of less than 16 per cent.

They also spend 28 per cent of their time maintaining systems, whereas they believe it should be no longer than 25 per cent.

Other findings reveal that organisations lose an average of three working weeks a year due to downtime, with one in seven losing over a month.

There is also a morale cost of such actions, because IT professionals that spend more than half their time supporting infrastructure are less likely to see themselves as delivering a proactive, good IT service (29 per cent) than those who spend less time providing support (44 per cent).

Fire fighting also eats into leisure time with more than a third of IT managers (38 per cent) getting called into work unexpectedly outside of working hours at least once a month.

Neil Sanderson, system center product manager at Microsoft, said: ‘Like real fire fighters, this survey shows that IT managers are the real heroes of the business world. With businesses now so reliant on IT infrastructures, a well maintained IT system can be the difference between a business that is successful and one that isn’t.’