Unisys Research Shows Executives Overestimate Organizations' Ability to Achieve Key Business and IT Goals

Recently completed research from Unisys Corporation (NYSE:UIS), involving 1,200 organizations worldwide, shows significant gaps between executives’ business and IT goals and their estimation of their organizations’ ability to achieve those objectives. Those gaps indicate that executives are not getting the most from their business initiatives and information technology (IT) investments, and need new approaches to modernize their business processes, strategic applications and IT infrastructures to address their core business challenges.

To help executives close those critical gaps, Unisys today announced the Unisys Modernization Benchmark service. Using trend information from the Unisys research, this service helps organizations benchmark their current business and IT operations against those of their peers and competitors, exposing the gaps between their desired state and their current readiness to achieve it. This enables executives to focus on those gaps which are likeliest to have a major impact and identify the business and technology initiatives in which they must invest – and the ways they must manage those investments – to gain the greatest business advantage in the shortest timeframe.

“Too many IT executives are in a budgetary straitjacket imposed by constricted notions of how IT can support business,” said Dominick Cavuoto, vice president, Global Industries and Worldwide Strategic Services, Unisys. “They’re spending 80 percent of their IT budget on infrastructure maintenance and funding innovation only as an afterthought. These strictures have been imposed largely by outmoded views of IT as a cost center, not an investment. The Unisys Modernization Benchmark service helps executives find fresh ways of thinking so they can free IT to enable breakthrough performance gains with low-cost operating models that deliver maximum return on investment.”

Research Reveals Fissures between Aspiration and Execution

The double-blind Unisys study, which provides baseline information for the Unisys Modernization Benchmark, surveyed 1,200 business and IT executives in organizations worldwide. When asked to state their most important business objectives, the respondents to the Unisys study uniformly placed priority on customer-focused and customer-dependent goals, such as acquiring new customers, building closer relationships with existing customers, developing new products and services, growing sales and revenue and reaching new markets.

Those executive respondents identified 10 capabilities – nearly all dealing with information and IT investments – that they believed were critical to achieving those business objectives. The capabilities included ability to support innovation, IT management practices, strategic decision-making, approach to IT investment, communications (information flow within and between organizations), IT sourcing model and IT security model.

Each executive was asked to rate where their organization stands today in capability to execute in each area and where they expect the organization to be in the next three years. In each case executive ratings indicated a significant gap between their current readiness and expected performance. For example:

• 62 percent of respondents expect that they will encourage innovation or be market leaders at supporting it within three years. Yet 70 percent say that currently they have no support for innovation, or their capability is only evolving or moderate;
• In describing IT management practices, 52 percent of respondents expect to treat IT as an investment or differentiator in three years, yet 72 percent say that they currently treat it as a support function, a means to enhance productivity or a capital expense;
• 67 percent of respondents expect to have integrated, collaborative communications with critical stakeholders within three years, yet only 32 percent say they have such a capability now;
• While only 51 percent of respondents have a formal, mature IT sourcing strategy and model today, 75 percent expect to have one in three years;
• 60 percent of respondents currently rate their security model as non-existent, limited or moderate, yet 75 percent expect their security model to be state-of-the-art in three years.

Unisys Modernization Benchmark Service Designed to Bridge the Gap

“The research provides a valuable snapshot of where organizations stand today relative to some significant areas of business and IT management, and affords a valuable tool for other businesses to assess their current states and aspirations,” said Cavuoto. “Yet there is no guarantee that those organizations will achieve their objectives as quickly and comprehensively as they hope. We are offering the Unisys Modernization Benchmark as a means to increase the chances of success for enterprise clients. The service can help executives find a way to liberate their business from the shackles of untested assumptions, reestablish their priorities and free IT to take the business in a new direction.”

The Unisys Modernization Benchmark service is based on a workshop approach. Unisys consultants help clients measure the organization’s capabilities in six dimensions:

• Business Resilience – how an organization manages its processes, policies and systems – including IT – to provide security, privacy and business continuity;
• Collaborative Business – the availability and effectiveness of knowledge- and data-sharing within and between organizations;
• IT as a Business Enabler – how an organization views and manages IT – whether it treats it just as a cost center or as a strategic investment that can drive business innovation;
• Open Business and IT – an organization’s commitment to innovation and adaptability, including use of open standards and other technologies that enable suppliers and customers to access the organization’s systems and integrate theirs with it;
• Green Business – the efficient and ethical management and consumption of resources throughout the organization’s ecosystems, including suppliers and partners; and
• Business Execution – the degree to which the organization’s management can execute business and technology initiatives to drive overall business objectives.

By comparing the organization’s capabilities and modernization progress in these critical areas to those of peers and competitors, as well as to industry and market averages, executives can re-evaluate the direction of their business and create a framework for where and how operations must evolve to take the organization where it needs to go.

The Unisys 3D Blueprinting approach can help clients execute their modernization plan. This approach enables them to gain visibility into the relationships between their business strategy, business processes, applications and IT infrastructure. Applying the 3D Blueprinting approach enables executives to create a plan for modernizing the enterprise from business strategy through infrastructure. Using Unisys modeling tools, the plan can be transformed into a high-impact solution to dramatically enhance the client’s chances for long-term success.

About the Research

Unisys commissioned strategic advisory firm Saugatuck Technology to conduct the research in late 2007 and early 2008. The double-blind study surveyed 1,200 business and IT executives in organizations worldwide. The discussion focused on the enterprises’ business priorities and the capabilities they have today and those they want to develop the most to support those key business objectives. For the full results, see the report “Enterprise Modernization: A Framework for Strategic Business Improvement.” The report is available by registering at www.unisys.com/FreeIT and accessing the “Insights” section and then “Analyst Insights.”

About Unisys

Unisys is a worldwide information technology services and solutions company. We provide consulting, systems integration, outsourcing and infrastructure services, combined with powerful enterprise server technology. We specialize in helping clients use information to create efficient, secure business operations that allow them to achieve their business goals. Our consultants and industry experts work with clients to understand their business challenges and create greater visibility into critical linkages throughout their operations. For more information, visit www.unisys.com.

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