Almost one third of Irish businesses are planning to invest in greater capacity through upgrading their current IT infrastructure this year, a survey of various Irish industry sectors reveals.
The survey of a broad spread of Irish industry sectors carried out by web hosting provider Novara.ie revealed that 22pc of businesses are seeking better value from existing IT services and 18pc are looking at outsourcing more IT services. Only 7pc said they planned to improve the security of existing IT infrastructure this year.
Interestingly, while 45pc of firms have a business plan for 2006, a further 44pc of firms say they do not have a business plan for 2006 and only 1pc believed the new .eu registration would be important for their business.
When asked what software they plan to use to implement IT solutions in 2006, 55pc said they will use Microsoft technology and 35pc said they planned to use in-house developed software.
In response to a question on benefits to their company’s growth through investment in IT, 35pc of firms said they expected to see growth in terms of client base, customer experiences and improved products and services.
Some 26pc of the businesses surveyed said they are already seeing efficiency gains by making existing processes available on the web via an extranet and 18pc saw improved internal efficiencies in terms of better internal communications, project management and general operations.
Only 7pc said they foresee a significant increase in the number of online sales as a result of their IT investment.
By John Kennedy
