Juniper Networks has released findings from a recent global survey, which revealed that over half of businesses surveyed primarily rely on IT departments to increase efficiency of their operations. But IT is largely falling short of expectations to drive business growth in new areas. The survey of 474 respondents spanned Germany, Japan, the U.K. and the United States. Fifty-one percent of respondents are C-level and board members and the remaining are senior executives and managers.
Today, businesses are rushing to keep up with exponential data growth and meet fast-changing market needs for digital services. Financial institutions are delivering mobile banking applications while gaming companies are rebuilding their game catalogues as online services. As companies rush to deliver these new services, IT has an opportunity to play a role advancing these new business initiatives.
“We must embrace disruptive technologies such as cloud and mobile that is propelling business growth to create an opportunity for IT to step out of a support function into a more strategic role. By creating new products and services and identifying new market opportunities, IT can truly transform and technologically enable the business,” said Bask Iyer, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Juniper Networks.
Sixty percent of respondents report IT will be very closely or somewhat closely involved in helping to develop new products or services for the company over the next three years. Importantly, survey respondents predicted the technology trend that would impact the competitiveness of their business was collaboration and information sharing through networks.
