Research by data centre solutions specialist Sentrum reports that 83 per cent of IT managers feel pressured to engage external consultants on data centre projects.

Although 97 per cent of the respondents from across the UK and USA said that they were more confident in their own ability to make key decisions in this area, they also felt that they were being dictated to, from higher up within the business, to seek independent guidance.

The research found that whilst 48 per cent of IT managers are more likely to seek advice from consultants now than in 2008, there is the suggestion that a key factor behind this reasoning is as a result of pressure from the board or the cfo.

The most common use of consultants in both the UK and USA is to advise on potential cost savings but half of those surveyed also engage them to provide strategic direction. Other factors include seeking advice about best practices for data centre procurement, to develop specifications for new data centres or to ensure that their organisation meets compliance requirements.

However, whilst in-house IT professionals might feel obliged to seek external expertise, 37 per cent of the organisations that took part in the study said they used consultants simply to sanity check plans and to ensure that specifications that were developed internally were correct. 25 per cent of organisations said they engage consultants purely to reassure the board and/or shareholders.