Business integration projects failing on time, ROI
Business integration projects failing on time, ROI
Mar 15, 2005: Most business integration projects are not being delivered on time, and nearly half of all projects are not achieving the expected return on investment (ROI).
Additionally, CIOs and IT Managers expect to spend three times as much on business integration services as integration software costs.
These are among the findings are from a new survey of Australian CIOs and IT Managers, carried out by database software provider Intersystems. The survey found that despite Australian organisations allocating on average 20 percent of their IT budgets to business integration projects, 51 percent of projects were not delivered on time, and 46 percent had not or were not expected to deliver the targeted ROI.
Seeking to better understand customer needs for business integration, InterSystems conducted the in-depth survey of 87 CIOs and IT Managers at 73 Australian organisations late last year.
"The failure to deliver targeted ROI is a major concern," said Denis Tebbutt, managing director of InterSystems in Australia. "With nearly half of business integration projects not expected to deliver target ROI, it may be time for many organisations to consider alternative approaches."
When CIOs and IT Managers were asked to consider available business integration technologies, a clear picture of their challenges emerged. Internal resource constraints, the additional expertise required, the cost involved during implementation, the length of time required to complete, and the cost involved in maintaining the systems were all issues that the respondents encountered to varying degrees during such projects.
With internal resource constraints and additional expertise required cited as concerns, it was not surprising that the survey found CIOs and IT Managers expected, on average, to expend three times as much money on services as software costs.
"A services-intensive engagement proposition has developed based around the assumption that integration projects are complicated and high risk," said Tebbutt. "This is not a sustainable proposition - this model has previously been rejected with both ERP and CRM.
"Business integration technology must become more integrated itself, enabling companies to focus more on business process and change management issues rather than making the technology do what it was supposed to do in the first place."
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