In a 2017 report from the Project Management Institute (PMI), 14 percent of all IT projects fail. However, this metric only tells part of the story. Of the projects that didn’t fail outright, 49% were late, 43% exceeded their initial budget, and 31% didn’t meet their goals.

According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, cybercrime costs the U.S. economy about $100 billion each year. As soon as you think you have one threat properly defended, a new, more dangerous threat emerges. This is why organizations continue to make major investments in IT security, to prevent data breaches and minimize their impact and to satisfy increasingly complex regulatory compliance requirements.

Many in-house IT teams are struggling to keep up with day-to-day administration and management tasks. The IT environment has become increasingly complex, encompassing a broad range of on-premises and cloud-based platforms. Growing numbers of users are accessing these systems with an array of mobile devices. An ever-increasing volume of data must be stored, protected and backed up. Organizations are under constant attack by a never-ending barrage of security threats.

IT systems should create value for your organization, drive operational efficiencies and support growth. Given the constantly evolving nature of technology, those objectives are always going to be moving targets. That’s why organizations should regularly engage in strategic IT planning to identify how technology assets are currently performing and where future investments will produce the most benefit.