Managers in IT are looking to a number of ways to slash expenditure, according to a new survey.

IT experts at consultancy Centralis interviewed a large number of public sector IT managers to find that many of them are facing increasing pressures to drop costs and drive innovation compared to private sector peers, Computing reported.

It was found that 56 per cent agreed with flexible working for the likes of those working in IT support as it was a believable cost-cutting measure, while a further 21 per cent understood the bonuses associated with upgrading operating systems.

Nearly one-fifth (18 per cent) identified the importance of looking into business continuity through the likes of online data backup and disaster recovery.

Ewen Anderson, Centralis' managing director, said: "Aligning IT capabilities with organisational goals such as shared services, business continuity and flexible working will deliver significant overall cost savings and help to meet a wide range of operational targets, not least those around carbon emission reductions as well."

Earlier this month, a report published by Business Insights entitled Effective Vendor Strategies for Targeting SMBs found that businesses are most worried about data breaches - fears which can be eased by disaster recovery or an online data backup of all information.

New research from Connect found that, on average, it takes businesses that use backup tapes take 11.6 hours to retrieve and restore files. Connect is now recommending that SMEs switch to online backup.