A new IBM Institute for Business Value survey of 750 technology executives revealed 71 percent of respondents recognized that IT infrastructure “plays an important role in enabling competitive advantage or optimizing revenue and profit.”

However, the survey, titled “Continuing the IT Infrastructure Conversation: Why Building a Strong Foundation Requires More Than Technology,” also showed that only 22 percent of respondents said their businesses have a well-defined enterprise IT infrastructure strategy in place.

IBM noted its most recent survey findings correspond with an IT infrastructure report that it released in July.

This report, titled “The IT Infrastructure Conversation,” showed that more than 90 percent of respondents said they believe their organization’s existing IT infrastructure is not fully prepared to meet the demands of cloud computing, big data, mobile technology and social media.

How can businesses handle cloud workloads?

Collaboration between IT executives and business leaders is crucial to manage cloud workloads, according to IBM.

“Today’s IT leaders are responsible for more than overseeing technology breakthroughs [and] are also integral to advising chief executives about the organization’s business strategy,” Tom Rosamilia, senior vice president of the IBM Systems & Technology Group and IBM Integrated Supply Chain, said in a prepared statement. “With customer experience as a key competitive advantage, never before has the combination and integration of back office and front office strategies been more critical.”

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The most recent IBM survey highlighted the importance of collaboration between IT executives and business leaders.

Researchers found that more than 40 percent of respondents said that business leaders will be involved in making decisions about cloud computing and IT architecture over the next three years, but only 30 percent of organizations effectively collaborate with the business to provide IT infrastructure solutions to support their business needs.

“IT executives need to improve collaboration among individuals to break down silos and work closer with suppliers and vendors to better understand the emerging technology landscape,” an IBM spokesperson told Talkin’ Cloud. “To support a new era of workloads based on cloud, social, mobile and analytics, there’s a need for the line-of-business leaders to work in tandem on challenges relating to next-generation IT requirements.”

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