A survey of 100 CIOs and IT Managers at 84 organisations, conducted from 28-30 September 2005 paints a grim picture of business integration with IT systems, finding that IT management continues to struggle to meet business integration requests with projects running late more often than not.

The survey, conducted by business integration software provider InterSystems, found that the number one driver for business integration was ‘Improving ROI on existing IT applications’ (51% of organisations); number two was ‘Web initiatives’ (39%).

In the past year, business integration projects improved in delivering target ROI (67% of projects this year vs 54% last year), but more business integration projects ran late (57% this year vs 51% last year).

According to the survey, CIOs and IT managers struggle to meet business integration requests in the timeframe required by the business; 68% meet fewer than 40% of requests in time.

A majority of organisations (53%) suffered reduced business agility through not being able to fulfil integration requests within the required timeframe.

The survey also found that 67% had integration projects that would be strategic to the business yet have not been undertaken because the required software and/or services costs are too great.