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The burden that IT services put on companies only becomes clear when all the challenges it deals with are looked at together, new research has revealed.

The study, conducted by theregister.com and Freeform Dynamics, found that while the day to day challenges faced by IT departments were, on there own, "a bearable pain" but, together, could present firms with a "significant headache".

It also said that a lack of joined up management across IT services could serve to exacerbate things.

Firms with out a clear management structure in place risked missing important changes or duplicated work and could even face higher costs.

Some companies have reacted to the growing burden of in-house IT support by outsourcing their requirements to a third party.

On Friday Computer Weekly reported that Deutsche Post World Net was outsourcing large parts of its IT functions in a move it said should save it £100 million a year over the next seven years.

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'.