Micro Focus releases a corporate report

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Micro Focus, a provider of enterprise application management and modernization solutions, today announced the completion of a major corporate report, “Safeguarding the Corporate IT Assets”.

The report, which includes research findings from 450 C-level respondents, examines IT recruitment within large organization, clearly showing a lack of core IT skills which could prove disastrous for the companies concerned, said a press release.

The report builds on initial quantitative research conducted by Micro Focus which showed how businesses are failing to safeguard their core business-critical technology assets.

Produced in conjunction with the international business school INSEAD, the report demonstrates that, although organizations believe core systems are the most valuable to business operations during a recession, the majority continue to focus instead on the recruitment of IT skills for newer Web 2.0 technologies.

Such recruitment policies not only waste valuable resources, but also fail to safeguard the future of one of the most valuable assets an organization has at its disposal: its core IT, said the release.

“While this report shows that some countries are more aware of the need to recruit core IT skills than others, overall, everyone is failing to recruit the skills needed to maintain the very heart of their business operations,” said Stephen Kelly, CEO, Micro Focus.

He further said that core systems would provide the most value to businesses during this recession, so it is essential for decision-makers not to be distracted by newer, less critical technologies.

“Web 2.0 solutions have huge potential to transform the way businesses operate, but these ‘shiny new toys’ should not be pursued at the expense of protecting and developing the IT assets at the heart of the business,” concluded Kelly.

In September 2008, Micro Focus polled 450 respondents across France, Germany, Italy, UK and US – CFOs, CIOs, and HR Directors – to discover what their organizations were doing to maintain and develop their IT systems.

All companies had annual revenues of at least $100 million, with 61 per cent reporting a turnover of over $1 billion, said the release.

The results should serve as a wake-up call to business and government alike that, even in tougher times, they must remain focused on recruiting professionals with the right skills to develop core IT assets in the future, added the release.