Firms 'waste time' on technical issues

News Article - 01 June 2007
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Companies in the UK waste more than 20 hours per month trying to rectify IT problems, a study has shown.

According to findings by telecommunications firm BT, many businesses spend up to £5,000 and 20 hours of their time each year attempting to solve IT issues.

Some 36 per cent of firms said that they encountered technical problems on a daily basis, while 66 per cent dealt with such issues on a weekly basis, the survey found.

A third of companies said that they lost more than 20 hours of productivity trying to sort out their computer faults, with 23 per cent stating that losing the email system was a regular complaint.

Simon Scott, spokesperson for BT, warned: "In today's business world where companies are dependent on IT to run their business, so much of the working day can be wasted if you don't have the right support to prevent and solve problems when systems don't perform properly."

Financial firm Grant Thornton recently advised small firms to spend more time on their IT security as this could help them deal with technical problems which may arise.

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