A report by BMC Software has revealed that business success is being impacted by a lack of collaboration between IT departments and business decision makers.

More than four in ten of businesses hold the IT department accountable if something goes wrong during the digital transformation process, despite two-thirds of businesses claiming they don’t ask for advice from the IT department when opting to buy new software to help with their everyday work.

The most common reasons projects fail were listed by the software firm as misaligned objectives between departments and time pressures to get things done or new technology procured.

Because businesses are more focused on increasing revenues or reducing costs rather than integrating the technologies into existing infrastructure, things often go awry.

And because the wider business wants decisions to be made faster than standard procurement processes, they often choose ill-fitting technologies that can be implemented faster, but then are discovered that the wrong software and tools are selected to work alongside existing systems, which means integration actually takes longer.

BMC Software said only 42% of businesses are seeing the positive impact digital transformation has had two years after implementing a strategy.

After three or four years, this rises to 63%, demonstrating the time-to-value is a lot longer than business execs expect it to take. Such considerations should be better taken into account and discussed with the IT department before spending budgets.

“Digital transformation is not a one-off, unique journey that some organisations are experimenting with,” Kevin Plumberg, editor of the report said.

“It has become the norm, and companies where IT teams are working closely with the business rather than in silos are better positioned to manage the challenges that inevitably arise.”