Legacy systems, technology downtime, the skills gap, cloud complexity, data confusion — companies are citing everything to explain recent revenue losses, according to a new report focused on IT as a service (ITaaS) from Hitachi Vantara.

Their Embracing ITaaS For Adaptability and Growth study revealed that around 40% of businesses across Europe and North America are citing these issues – and more – for their revenue losses.

Further, 55% if enterprises are struggling to derive meaningful insights from their data, highlighting an industry-wide need to deliver technology faster, more reliably, and in more places.

The survey revealed ongoing challenges related to security, inflexible systems, isolated data, a skilled labour shortage, and the need for infrastructure agility.

With these, the underlying issues surrounding data complexities, rigid technology environments and increasing costs due to aging or legacy infrastructure remain to confound businesses and complicate growth.

Hitachi Venture’s study surveyed 213 IT leaders with a focus on subscription- and consumption-based ITaaS models. The survey exposed some major legacy infrastructure challenges, which can be a death nail for businesses attempting to enhance their offering amid burgeoning technologies like multicloud and AI.

Technology downtime (56%), technical debt (50%) and complex cloud landscapes (45%) were some of the most common reasons IT leaders found themselves struggling.

“In today’s digital age, IT is not just a department; it’s a driving force that propels progress. It enables enterprises to innovate, collaborate, and flourish amid ever-evolving technology,” said Gary Lyng, vice president, product and solutions, Hitachi Vantara.

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“But complexity is hindering innovation, which emphasizes the need for trusted specialists to simplify setup for seamless access to data and applications. Our expertise in storage and digital infrastructure and pay-as-you-go solutions rights the ship for struggling enterprises, maximizing value and the overall return on their investment.”

Despite these harsh realities, the survey also found that ITaaS is experiencing recent growth as an industry, with 42% of leaders expanding their adoption.

ITaaS is expected to grow, actually, according to the report, with an expected rise not only for individual solutions but also across the entirety of various infrastructure categories.

For example, 56% of respondents are using ITaaS for all of their primary infrastructure today and this value is expected to increase to up to 86% in three years.