Fifty-eight percent of the
IT
managers who admitted
to being worried about meeting compliance requirements blamed the
increasing volume of
IT
and business regulations.
These include the Data Protection Act, the
US
Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Freedom of Information Act.
Fifty-two percent felt that the problem lay with their lack of
awareness of the legislation while 44% blamed a lack of time for
failure to meet compliance requirements.
Compliance has increased
IT
costs by an average of
12% for almost half of the 1,030 British
IT
managers
surveyed. On average, over one-tenth of the annual
IT
budget is spent complying with legislation.
One-third of organisations have had to invest in new technology,
such as backup, disaster recovery, and software solutions, said the
survey, but well over half of the respondents confirmed that they
did not expect to see any return on their investment.
Compliance demands are also having an effect on how
IT
managers view their jobs, with two-thirds of those
surveyed believing that compliance requirements made their jobs
more demanding and one-third claiming their jobs are now less
attractive.
Steve Lewis, Enterprise Systems Director with Dell
UK
, said:
"
IT
should be at the centre of efforts to improve
business performance, and
IT
managers could benefit
from working more closely with their legal departments to
understand the impact of legislation and the penalties of
non-compliance – and then pass this information on to their
staff."
