UK tech leaders are being buried under supplier sprawl, broken networks and bosses who still treat IT like stationery.
New research from Zen Internet shows small business tech leaders are struggling to make technology drive change. The survey of 500 tech leaders at mid-market and larger companies paints a fairly grim picture. IT teams may keep the place running, but their advice is too often ignored.
The result is a messy heap of contracts, vendors and platforms slowing down change. It is the sort of procurement soup that makes every upgrade feel like wading through wet cement.
The biggest worry is network modernisation. Businesses want it, but many appear stuck dealing with suppliers that move with all the urgency of a sleepy tortoise.
The research found 78 per cent of senior technology decision-makers think complexity is slowing change. They pointed to multiple vendors, platforms and contracts as the chief culprits.
That suggests departments are still buying software and hardware on their own little adventures. This has been a problem for decades and usually leaves IT cleaning up the mess.
Another 49 per cent of leaders said their biggest barrier to long-term decisions was a lack of commitment from non-IT leadership.
The research found 51 per cent of UK technology leaders see network resilience as business critical. Outages hit revenue and customers, which tends to focus minds once the invoices stop moving.
Another 94 per cent consider network resilience important to their company’s success. Still, recognising the problem is not the same as doing something useful about it. Some 36 per cent said network modernisation would be their biggest investment over the next few years.
The supplier picture looks less cheerful. Some 47 per cent said suppliers delay projects, while 31 per cent said they block changes.
Based on the findings, the state of UK business IT looks pretty ropey. Too many companies seem to think infrastructure is optional until something catches fire.
Zen Business managing director Jon Nowell said: “Too many organisations are spending valuable time managing multiple suppliers, disconnected systems and separate security solutions when they should be focused on innovation and delivering value to customers.”
“The challenge isn’t simply keeping businesses connected. It’s giving them the confidence that their network can support growth, cloud adoption, AI initiatives and new ways of working, while ensuring users, applications and data remain secure without adding more complexity,” Nowell said.
Fixing the mess means tackling slow suppliers, contracts that no longer fit and leadership teams that only discover networks when they fall over. Until then, IT departments will keep being told to enable change while someone else signs another supplier deal in a side room.
