Gartner sees challenge in handling complexity.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: Strategy

Are companies prepared to handle the new pressures on information services (IS) created by new enterprise business models and globalization? Gartner Inc. is skeptical. The technology research and advsiory firm predicts that through 2007, 65 percent of enterprises will grossly mismanage complexity and risk, stifling productivity and earnings and inflating costs by at least 25 percent.

"Business and IS leaders must realize that globalization, virtualization, competition and transparency will change most aspects of most business sectors in almost all countries and regions," says John Mahoney, managing vice president at Gartner. "The rising trend of strategic sourcing and offshore outsourcing, along with the continuing role of traditional outsourcers, bring about another wave of restructuring--one that frequently involves both people displacement and individual departments and functions moving between, as well as within enterprises. The shift to the real-time enterprise as a source of competitiveness will cause massive discontinuities in and between enterprises and many industry sectors."

Gartner analysts maintain that while each of the...