PwC was commissioned by Oracle to survey 30 CSPs across Europe to see if they were working towards the business agility required to allow them to compete effectively in the market.

The research found that CSPs had to "resolve" high degrees of in-built - and often inherited - complexity in their IT infrastructures to enable them to compete.

The research also reveals that CSPs are currently spending significant portions of their budgets merely maintaining this complexity, much of which results from the continued use of bespoke applications.

PwC said many CSPs were already planning steps within the next 18 months to deliver the agility their businesses need. At the heart of this was a reduction in the use of bespoke applications, which "carry a higher total cost of ownership and bring considerable budget overruns, management overhead and time delays", said PwC.

CSPs said improving customer experience is a top driver for IT strategy in the communications industry, and a smarter use of customer relationship management (CRM) applications is the area of greatest focus for system replacements or upgrades.