Whitespace Solutions - Turning data into information into knowledge.



	The Industry Challenge
	Industry experts inform us that 85% of Information Systems budgets are spent on just keeping the lights on, that is on existing applications. Therefore only 15% is spent on the new, competitive edge applications. The first goal is to release more of that 85% through reducing maintenance costs, consolidation applications and infrastructure, improving processes and methodologies such that more can be focussed on gaining advantage for the organisation. Of the current average of 15% being spent on new applications the figures here make very poor reading. Over half of all projects are rolled back, 80% are partial or total failures and it is 7 times more costly to fix an application in production than in its test phase. Coupled with this is:
	31.1% of all projects are cancelled before completion 52.7% will cost over 189% of the original budget estimate 16.2% of software projects are completed on time, on budget in medium size companies 9% in larger organisations
	So the problem exists in both larger and medium size organisations. To date the above has resulted in a huge trend to outsource the problem, or sweep it under the carpet. Two thirds of CIO’s would admit to outsourcing the problem on the basis of cost alone with no consideration to risk, strategic importance and the effect on business agility. Once outsourced the knowledge is lost and control is handed over leading to spiralling expenditure and the same failures as already discussed. So why is the IT sector characterised by this dismal failure. In short it is a mixture of silo based organisational structures and their associated cultures, tools that have promised the dream and never delivered, rapid IT change coupled with business change, lack of a service focus to delivery to the business and immature processes or none at all. So what is the solution

Industry Challenge