A new report suggests that many IT managers think that they are spending too much of their time "fighting fires", rather than developing new projects.

The report was carried out by Loudhouse on behalf of Microsoft, vnunet.com reports.

According to the findings, 62 per cent of IT managers thought that they were spending more than one day a week on unplanned activities, while managing crises accounted for a further 30 per cent of their time.

However, these managers typically thought that these activities should take up just 16 per cent of their time.

Nearly a quarter (22 per cent) thought that fire fighting problems was their primary role in the company.

"This survey confirms what we hear directly from our customers," Microsoft's system centre product manager, Neil Sanderson, told the site.

"IT managers need proper management tools to deliver a good IT service. But, like a car, it needs to be looked after effectively and regularly to stop the time drain and costs spiralling."

Outsourcing disaster recovery and IT support services could help free IT managers to pursue other projects.

In a recent survey of SMEs for Connect, the two most important benefits of outsourcing were 'guaranteed response times' and 'allowing in-house IT staff to concentrate on more strategic issues'.