Firms need to put IT modernisation on their agenda or risk losing their competitive edge, it has been claimed.

ITPro.co.uk reports comments from Gartner - a firm of analysts - which predicts that by the end of the decade 33 per cent of IT projects will be caused by the result of outdated technology.

Speaking to the website, Andy Kyte vice-president of the firm said: "The scale of obsolescence in the set of portfolios is a major problem in its own right, but it is compounded by the lack of integrated planning capability within many IT management teams."

He added that IT modernisation should not be dealt with in a short-term manner because of the size and complexity of the project.

Earlier this month Graham Ridgeway of Toucpaper said that IT departments should be at the heart of the decision making process in firms and that they should not be confined to maintaining existing systems.

More than half of small businesses (53%) believe that the most important benefit of outsourcing is guaranteed response times for IT support, London based Connect conducted the research in 2007.