Research has shown that Irish businesses are at risk of falling behind other nations if they do not embrace new technologies.
The report, The Drivers and Challenges of Ireland’s IT Landscape, was conducted jointly by Digital Realty and Hewlett Packard Enterprise and outlines the potential avenues for success for Irish companies and warns that current IT infrastructure will become unfit for purpose if endeavours such as AI adaptation and deliverance of sustainability are not undertaken.
Some key findings of the report include the shortage of AI skills at hand to Irish businesses, challenges when it comes to data security and making a better use of data.
In terms of AI, the study found that the skills gap has actually widened, from 13% of organisations to 18% in 2024.
Data security is viewed as a major threat by companies, with 67% identifying it as their biggest challenge, up from 62% in 2022.
When managing data, nearly a third (28%) of businesses surveyed said they struggle with the management of the ever-growing amounts of data within their organisation.
Almost one in four (36%) reported they would like to understand how to improve the use of their data.
It also reveals a slight increase (45% to 51%) in the number of Irish organisations planning to migrate to a hybrid IT environment to leverage both on-premises systems and off-premises cloud/hosted resources.
There is a continued reliance by Irish business on external support to deliver their IT strategies and they are more likely to rely specifically on managed service providers than those headquartered outside of Ireland (43% versus 24%).
“The shift is happening, slowly, and it’s clear that businesses do now have a better understanding of their overall IT strategy, but the gap between international peers needs to close” said Séamus Dunne, Managing Director, Digital Realty in Ireland & the UK.
“As the survey shows, more and more organisations are recognising that a hybrid approach provides the flexibility and scalability needed to keep up with the changes and address technological challenges” said Ray McGann, Managing Director, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Ireland.
A total of 150 technical and business professionals from a cross-section of industries participated in the Digital Realty/HPE 2024 research.
