In a European, multi sector research study of IT decision makers, security has been ranked as the biggest IT issue. The research was carried out for infrastructure experts Siemon, and recorded 97 percent of respondents ranking security high or very high in importance. Compliance and global standardisation were also found to be at the top of the list of end user priorities.

The group of companies surveyed were all major blue chip organisations with the majority operating globally and having over 10,000 employees. The respondents were spread across various sectors with a focus on finance and IT.

Those answering the research came predominantly from IT management but the sample also included consultants, networking teams and project managers.

Commenting on the research findings, Steven Foster, EMEA managing director at Siemon said, “In today’s world of mission critical applications and reliance on data, it was little wonder security came out as the number one priority. This may partially be a factor of the financial bias in the sample population but with such a high score across all sectors it’s a clear message that for major corporations security is front of mind, followed by legislative compliance and system standardisation.”

According to Foster, the high scoring for global standardisation was least surprising as the company has seen this factor having increasing influence in major infrastructure tenders within the top tier of the corporate market: “Whilst regional market preferences continue to prevail, with the increasing demands placed on network infrastructure, we have seen global specifications shifting towards the highest performing, most robust and secure solutions such as category 6A and category 7 cabling” he said. “Many global organisations are keen to standardise their IT, working with global equipment suppliers to achieve internal standardisation – cabling is no different and is now recognised as an integral and critical part of the IT infrastructure.”

Another interesting result from the survey was that concern for environmental issues was a focus for attention. This was recorded as either a high or very high priority for over half of the respondents with 52 percent scoring this issue as a serious concern.

As a supplementary finding to the survey, over 70 percent of companies surveyed judged network cabling to be ‘very important’. “It is heartening to see cabling growing in perceived value within IT,” said Foster. “Many corporate end users are realising that whilst cabling is a relatively small part of the overall IT investment, it is the platform on which all else is built. Quality cabling systems continue to dominate the blue chip sector of the market.”