Businesses working in the IT sector must ensure they are keeping as much data on their customers as possible, particularly in the current climate, a new survey has detailed.

According to a new report by global information services company Experian, 30 per cent of businesses in the UK have not profiled their biggest-spending clients.

Stuart Johnston, the UK managing director at Experian QAS, said the news was worrying, considering the financial environment the UK is faced with.

He continued: "The bedrock for any customer management strategy is having high quality data insight."

Mr Johnston added that "nearly a third of UK organisations admit that they do not even know if they have the right name and address details for their most valuable client contacts".

When companies are considering their options for data retention, such as customer relationship management, IT support must first consider their current computer systems before installing anything, Forrester Research's William Band asserted.

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.