Sterling Commerce, an AT&T Inc. subsidiary has announced the results of a survey of European IT managers.

According to the LogisticsIT, 9 out of 10 European retail and manufacturing businesses are struggling to automate the order-to-fulfillment cycle, as a result of major application integration challenges. As a consequence, process gaps are preventing 72% of companies from adding new sales channels to target growth market opportunities.

These are the headline findings of independent research conducted for Sterling Commerce by Vanson Bourne, who questioned more than 300 IT managers in the UK, France and Germany.

The results reveal that UK businesses have the lowest levels of application integration across Europe, with 20% not integrated at all. As many as one in five UK respondents admitted to gaining no competitive advantage at all from their IT systems.

The survey also found that 50% of UK IT Managers said they felt confident they could track orders in real-time, a key requirement of efficient order-to-fulfillment, compared to 64% of French and 63% of German respondents.

"These results strongly suggest that UK businesses are facing a dual challenge; not only is poor integration having an impact on internal efficiency but it is actually adversely impacting their ability to respond quickly to changing market demands, such as profitably launching a new sales channel or on-boarding new trading partners."

"60% of UK companies do not currently rely on the web to conduct business, and unless they address the underlying challenges associated with a lack of integration, they will continue to miss out on market opportunities. This will mean an inability to capitalize on current growth trends such as cross-channel shopping, and companies will ultimately fall short of providing the level of customer satisfaction required to retain competitive differentiation."