- 74% of European businesses have refreshed their network in last 3 years

- Yet 41% of companies still take a month or more to action network changes

GUILDFORD, England, 21 May, 2012 – European businesses are inadequately prepared to support day-to-day business functions despite continuous investment in their IT infrastructure according to a study released today by Avaya, a global provider of business communications and collaboration systems and services.

The study – which reflects results of a survey of more than 250 CIOs, IT and network managers across EMEA - found that despite over two-thirds (74%) of businesses undergoing a network refresh within the last three years nearly a quarter (24%) worried about 24/7 availability and a fifth (21%) were concerned about responding faster to the requirements of the business.

The results suggest that network investment is focused on managing the network in extreme situations rather than on a day-to-day basis. The majority of companies (88%) have a business continuity plan in place in case of a major disaster yet 41 per cent still take a month or more to make a change to their network. Just over a fifth (22%) claimed they could make required changes in a day.

Companies seem to realise that this situation is unsustainable. Bring Your Own Device (21%) and IT virtualisation (25%) were identified as the main emerging technologies which would require an infrastructure upgrade. Over a quarter (27%) plan to invest in 10 Gig Ethernet within the next 18 months while a fifth (21%) will invest in Network Access Control.

Looking to the future, Cloud Networking has an overwhelmingly positive reception from senior IT managers with just under half (48%) believing a hybrid mixture of private and public Cloud would be most appropriate for their organisation. Only 11 per cent feel Cloud has no role within their business.