The only way to deal with a zombie project is to go for the head
We’ve all done it. We’re all guilty of it. The half-accomplished DIY job, the abandoned ‘project’, the subscription to a service we joined fired by the first flush of an enthusiasm that petered out after a few weeks. Been there, got the T-shirt and we’d wear it if only we we could remember where we put it.
So none of us is really in any position to pronounce judgement on all those enterprises in Ireland which, according to a recent survey commissioned by Saros Consulting, are spending an average of €667,000 a year on ‘zombie projects’. For anyone wondering exactly what a zombie project is, Saros provides a helpful definition: “a project that is effectively dead in terms of value, progress or strategic relevance, but continues to consume time, money and resources because nobody has formally stopped it.”
See what I mean? Okay, so none of us is spending quite as much on our zombie subscriptions as the average enterprise in Ireland although, as a proportion of overall spending, the difference might not be quite as drastic as we’d like to believe.
Anyway, back to the survey of 200 IT decision-makers in organisations in Ireland with more than 250 employees, which formed part of the CIO Strategy Report 2026 from Saros Consulting.
Commenting on the findings, Justin van der Spuy, co-founder and co-CEO of Saros Consulting, said: “When Irish organisations continue funding projects that are no longer delivering value, they not only increase costs but also create debt and risk. What is needed now is greater visibility into where technology budgets are being spent and whether that spending is strategic, or wasteful.”
Sounds familiar to those of us still paying for things we don’t use, doesn’t it?
Saros also found that almost one-in-five (18%) large organisations did not have an IT strategy in place and, of those that did have, one-in-seven said the IT strategy was not up-to-date.
I must admit to being a little surprised at that 18% figure. It seems a little bit high in this day and age. But then, perhaps it shouldn’t be when IT strategies can change or become out-dated very quickly.
Fellow co-founder and co-CEO, Ray Armstrong, argued that the lack of an IT strategy could be linked to the persistence of zombie projects. “A clear and well-understood IT strategy can help organisations avoid investing in projects that no longer support their goals,” he stated.
His argument was backed up by the 64% of IT leaders who claimed that their organisation’s IT strategy helped them to avoid investing in the wrong technologies and the 61% who said it supported better decision-making.
To be fair, we’d all appreciate something like that to help avoid our own zombie projects. From a channel perspective, I can’t help thinking that this could be an indictment, to some extent, of the inability of the IT industry to communicate clearly with organisations so they can formulate an effective IT strategy. After all, you can’t have an IT strategy without clear direction from IT vendors. If things keep changing (and you don’t), you won’t have an IT strategy.
So there’s probably some work to be done by vendors and channel partners to help organisations develop an effective IT strategy. The key word here is “effective”. I mention this because, according to the survey, 36% of respondents did not say that their IT strategy helps avoid investment in the wrong technologies. I don’t think anyone is going to suggest that having an IT strategy grants absolute immunity from zombie projects. Heck, sometimes it may well cause them. After all, 36% is quite a high proportion and does make you wonder about the wastefulness of having an IT strategy if it’s not the right one.
So you can see that there is a sort of excuse for those that don’t have a fully developed IT strategy. Maybe, for some organisations, not having an IT strategy is an IT strategy.
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