Infotech Lead India: Non technical employees who are saddled with the responsibility of managing their company’s IT solutions cost small businesses $24 billion in productivity, annually.
Non technical who are given such responsibility are referred to as ‘involuntary IT managers’ (IITMs). The loss is a direct result of the time that IITMs spend on activities other than those related to the business.
An AMI-Partners small-business study commissioned by Microsoft reveals that although small businesses spent $83 billion on IT and communications, they lost $24 billion in productivity because they had to devote time to managing their internal IT. Approximately 3.8-million small businesses entrusted the management of internal IT to IITMs.
According to AMI-Partners, on an average, IITMs lose six hours of business productivity per week while managing IT.
The Involuntary IT Manager study focuses on the prevalence of the IITM’s role in nine countries in North America, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia, with special attention on the adverse business productivity impact of IITMs in small business in Australia, Brazil, Chile, India and the United States.
While some IITMs are confident in their technical skills, most agreed that their general work productivity suffers when their work time is diverted to managing IT issues. They felt that cloud-based solutions could reduce some of the burdens of managing IT.
The study showed that 30 percent of all surveyed IITMs considered IT management to be a nuisance and 26 percent felt that they are not adequately qualified to manage IT.
6 in 10 IITMs feel that simplifying their company’s technology solutions would alleviate the difficulty of managing day-to-day IT.
Nearly 40 percent of IITMs leverage technology related to communication, collaboration and cloud solutions for business growth.
In India, small businesses lost $2.67 billion in productivity while spending $6.67 billion on IT/Telecom. IITMs in India bear the highest productivity loss of all countries surveyed – 7.6 hours of productivity per week due to managing IT.
AMI-Partners found that IITMs eager to leverage the cloud in the next 12 months to manage their IT needs. Around one third of IITMs are likely to shift more IT spending toward hosted or cloud solutions. 36 percent are interested in a productivity and collaboration suite.
One fourth of small businesses in India are likely to shift more IT spending toward hosted or cloud solutions. 39 percent of the small businesses are interested in purchasing online productivity suites on a per-user, per-month basis.
Picture source: careerbear.com
