Fear of Fines and Software Over-spend Drives Organisations to Auditing

This indicates a move away from security as the traditional top priority in recent years. Twenty-nine per cent of respondents cited software licensing as the most important IT issue faced by their organisation, compared with 27 per cent for risk management/business continuity and 18 per cent for IT security. Fifty-three per cent of respondents said they believed that a proactive IT Asset Management strategy delivered ‘improved business performance’, with 50 per cent citing the number one financial benefit as being the reduction in spend on new licences and support renewals. The research highlighted a need for a greater focus on bottom-line savings among IT managers. Eighty-seven per cent of those questioned were confident that taking stock of their IT assets had reduced costs, but only 20 per cent were able to quantify this saving. Fifteen per cent of these respondents made a saving of up to 20 per cent, with five per cent making a saving of up to 35 per cent. Respondents also recognised that improved IT asset management generated a number of less quantifiable but equally important business benefits such as improved peace of mind (50 per cent) and greater staff productivity (30 per cent). Survey Methodology This survey, conducted jointly by Centennial Software and FAST Corporate Services was completed by delegates to the FAST 2004 Annual Conferences held in Birmingham, Reading and Manchester. Respondents included a wide range of IT professionals from C-level executives to network, security and audit managers.