Lithuanian businesses start setting more ambitious goals for their Information Technologies (IT), which should not only ensure fluent business operations and improve efficiency, but should also have a direct impact on the financial results. This was revealed by the expert survey of Lithuanian entrepreneurs conducted by Alna Intelligence, the largest IT consulting and service company in the Baltic States.
As many as 73 per cent of surveyed entrepreneurs indicated that the information technologies they used for their business was the company’s tool to increase earnings. Whereas 18 per cent still think that IT is a cost-consuming field.

Alna Intelligence director Kazimieras Tonkūnas argues that these findings show the gradually altering approach of Lithuanian businesses towards the purpose of IT and their impact on business. “Just a short time ago many managers of Lithuanian companies viewed IT as simply a normal work tool with a certain budget allocated for its purchase or updating. Whereas now companies are more proactive in looking for more effective ways to manage their IT stock and use IT in seeking their key business goals,” he adds.

The majority (70 per cent) of surveyed entrepreneurs also confirmed the fact that IT currently had an impact on the improvement of the financial results that they were in charge of.
Asked whether they used IT services offered by specialised companies, 60 per cent of managers responded that they bought some services, and every third indicated that they had outsourced the entire management of their IT stock to IT service companies. IT companies are hired mostly for the opportunity to use their experience and competence (26 per cent), the other important reasons being optimisation of business processes and scarce internal resources (23 per cent each). Approximately one fourth of respondents also found cost reduction and improvement of corporate financial results important.

The majority of companies (35 per cent) allocated from LTL 100,000 to 200,000 to investment into IT stock annually. By the way, even seven per cent of businesses devotes as much as LTL 5-10 million to their IT stock per year.
The survey also showed that companies mostly invest into software procurement and updating as well as development and implementation of business management systems. The service and maintenance of IT stock is in the third place by share of investment.

With its annual expert survey Alna Intelligence seeks to find out the priorities of Lithuania’s largest companies in the IT field. Managers of retail, manufacturing and service enterprises were surveyed. This year’s survey involved a total of 130 companies.