New survey: e-commerce projects doomed

CEC, an European IT consultancy firm, polled 105 decision makers in the UK services, financial and manufacturing sector on issues ranging from project management, technological change, call centres, e-commerce and vendor contracts.

Over half of respondents were not satisfied with their companies performance in the field of e-commerce, with many citing high cost and changing technology as the main factors governing this. A significant majority were also dissatisfied with the time taken for developing IT projects.

One respondent complained that projects had been rushed through, before they were completed: "I have seen deadlines missed -- so incomplete projects are still implemented, resulting in failure." Interestingly, 60 percent of respondents accepted that the pace of technological change in IT created opportunities rather than problems, but organisations were not exploiting this, especially when it came to e-commerce.

93 percent of Britain's top IT and financial heads believed that their IT strategy was in tune with the company's business plan, although two-thirds expressed concerned that they had no process for assessing the return on IT investment.