Partner Article

IT Dampening Innovation in Financial Services Organisations

Research from Sungard Availability Services® finds that 46% of Financial Services organisations claim that they do not have the skills within their business to manage a complex IT estate

Research from Sungard Availability Services® (Sungard AS), a leading provider of information availability through managed IT, cloud and recovery services, has revealed that many financial services (FS) organisations in Western Europe are lacking the skills to manage their complex IT environments, severely limiting the ability to innovate.

Questioning 114 senior IT decision makers from FS organisations[1] across the UK, Ireland, France and Sweden, the research found that the industry’s IT departments are in an era of transition – moving from traditional and legacy IT systems toward a cloud approach. This use of different IT platforms, whether that is private or public cloud, on premise servers, or data centre services, is known as Hybrid IT.

Complexity Woes

Although considered by over a third of FS organisations (37 per cent) as a necessity in staying competitive, it seems that the complexity of Hybrid IT is posing a threat to business agility in the FS sector. A worrying 48 per cent of respondents confessed that they are now struggling to innovate thanks to the complexity of their IT infrastructure. Adding insult to injury, this complexity has also added an £158,556 per year to the FS sector’s IT bill thanks to increased operating costs as businesses struggle to maintain IT security and data integrity (35 per cent), keep all aspects of the infrastructure available (30 per cent), and keep all platforms interoperable (30 per cent).

The complexity issue has further consequences as just under half (46 per cent) of FS organisations claim that they do not have the skills within their business to manage a complex IT estate, with 48 per cent stating that they’ve had to bring in additional support. Particularly concerning, 32 per cent of these organisations believe they lack the security skills needed to manage Hybrid IT. Given the criticality of data within the FS sector, worries over security are particularly pertinent.

Nothing that’s Worthwhile is Ever Easy

Despite its challenges, enthusiasm for Hybrid IT is undiminished. Indeed, over a third (38 per cent) of FS organisations felt Hybrid IT is essential to keeping on top of external regulations and compliance requirements. And when it’s done right the benefits are invaluable: around half (47 per cent) of FS organisations found that Hybrid IT could increase business agility while a quarter noted improvements in IT scalability and 26 per cent found it allowed for greater overall governance of data – a critical factor for such a heavily regulated industry.

Commenting on the findings, Keith Tilley, Executive Vice President, Global Sales & Customer Services Management at Sungard Availability Services, said: “As with many industries, innovation is crucial to the Financial Services sector, with many large companies under pressure to revaluate their business model thanks to the recent waves of fast and agile ‘FinTech’ start-ups. Traditional FS organisations need to rethink how they engage with the customer, capitalising on new trends, such as the consumer’s increasing reliance on mobile computing, and transforming themselves into a flexible, modern enterprise.

“Clearly, FS organisations can see the benefits of adopting a Hybrid IT approach and the role it can play in helping their business to achieve this. However, what we are starting to see here is the Jekyll & Hyde style ‘split personality’ of today’s Hybrid IT environment; without a strong strategy and the right skills in place to manage it, the ‘good’ side of hybrid IT can quickly be overcome by the more difficult side, where it rapidly becomes complex and out of control. But it doesn’t have to be that way. 61 per cent of our respondents who regard their Hybrid IT as a success put this down to having the right partner by their side. Clearly finding such expert, tailored strategic support can help combat this complexity, allowing organisations to create the optimal IT environment that will promote sustainable growth and profit for their business.”

Badreddine Laroussi, Group CIO – TDA Capital, commented: “The whole point of moving to a Hybrid IT approach is to increase business agility. Technology is changing all the time, with new applications and services appearing on a weekly basis. We need an approach that can take advantage of this, allowing the right solutions to be brought into the IT estate whenever they become available. Of course, this requires careful planning: including an assessment of which applications would suit a cloud environment and which would be better elsewhere, as well as ensuring you have the right skills set, whether that is in-house, or through working with a partner, to make a success of this approach?”

About the research

Interviews were carried out in September and October 2015 by Vanson Bourne on behalf of Sungard Availability Services®. 500 interviews were conducted altogether: 150 from the UK, 150 from France and 100 each from Sweden and Ireland. The research spoke to IT decision makers in businesses of over 500 employees across a variety of sectors – including financial services, business process management and retail.

The abbreviation for Sungard Availability Services is ‘Sungard AS’ as cited above. Please use ‘Sungard AS’ when abbreviating the name rather than ‘Sungard’ or ‘SunGard,’ which may confuse the reader with another separate company with a similar name.

About Sungard Availability Services:

Sungard Availability Services (“Sungard AS”) is a leading provider of critical production and recovery services to global enterprise companies. Sungard AS partners with customers across the globe to understand their business needs and provide production and recovery services tailored to help them achieve their desired business outcomes. Leveraging 35 years of experience, Sungard AS designs, builds and runs critical IT services that help customers manage complex IT, adapt quickly and build resiliency and availability. Visit Sungard Availability Services at www.sungardas.co.uk or call 0800 143 413. Connect with us on LinkedIn , Twitter and our Blog.

Representing techUK (formerly Intellect), the trade association, Sungard AS is helping define ISO 27036 – the IT standard relating to information security in supplier relationships (including cloud services) as a member of SC27. Previously in a similar arrangement, Sungard AS helped develop both business continuity management standard BS 25999, now ISO 22301 and IT continuity management standard ISO 27031. Within the UK, Sungard AS became the first business continuity provider to secure certification against the BS 25999 Standard, which it retained in 2010. SunGard is also certified to ISO 27001 and ISO 9001, and compliant with IGSoC, PCI DSS and ISAE3402.

Sungard Availability Services is a trademark or registered trademark of SunGard Data Systems or its affiliate, used under license. The Sungard Availability Services logo by itself is a trademark or registered trademark of Sungard Availability Services Capital, Inc. or its affiliate. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners.

[1] The research was part of a wider multi-sector study that questioned 500 senior IT decision makers from organisations of more than 500 employees about the current challenges and opportunities in managing their IT.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Sungard Availability Services .