Citrix announced the release of research into “The State of IT Complexity in Australia” that revealed over half of Australian businesses' are struggling with complexity. Overlapping systems, applications, and new and old infrastructure cost time, money, and affects innovation. The rise in complexity felt by Australian organisations and is holding back digital transformation efforts and restricting cloud adoption.

The sheer volume of applications and data that need to be maintained and secured has risen in response to employee's need to get work done anywhere at any time. This pressure is also fuelling Shadow IT, 83% of the respondents from Australia, stated that they use non-business-approved applications to get work done. Meaning applications are running in the organization's environment unknown and unsecured.

Citrix ANZ VP Erin Butler says, “The study found a strong correlation between the increasing levels of complexity felt within organisations and the delay of digital transformation maturity.

“The future has never looked more complex. IT leaders are being asked not only to deliver IT services but also to improve business outcomes. Businesses must seek out a solution that allows for a unified, contextual and secure digital workspace that enables employees to securely work how, where and when they need while simplifying management.

This complexity and confusion about the IT environment impact to an organization's agility, insights and ability to digitally transform.

Analytics and the promise of business improving insights is also suffering from complexity concerns; 83% of Australian respondents believe they are missing out of the true benefits of analytics due to the complex and nature of their data and applications.

Study key findings: 

• 55% of Australian businesses believe their IT environments are more or significantly more complex than two years ago.

• 96% of Australian businesses have started their digital transformation journey, but only 21% have reached maturity.

• 83% of Australian businesses believe that their organisation is missing out on the full benefits of analytics.

• 83% of Australian employees use non-business approved applications.

• 81% of Australian businesses are already adopting cloud technology.

Butler concludes, “The real strategic value of cloud adoption is as a platform for building your own applications. This will really transform business processes, how businesses do things, new ways of working and new ways of delivering those apps – this is real digital transformation and should be considered part of a broader journey”.