UK companies and public sector bodies are still heavily
reliant on legacy IT systems that are holding back business
improvement, a new survey has revealed.
More than a quarter of private and public sector organisations
are using legacy technology to support at least half of their
critical systems, the survey of more than 150 senior IT
professionals found.
Nearly four out of five organisations said a lack of system
agility made aligning IT with business objectives difficult, the
survey, commissioned by outsourcing firm Atos Origin and carried
out by the National Computing Centre, discovered.
The research identified spiralling costs arising from
maintaining and supporting legacy systems through “unstructured
updates”.
More than six out of 10 of those surveyed believed there was a
negative return on investment in maintaining legacy IT systems,
while 64% said complexity and integration of systems was a
significant IT problem.
Over two-thirds of the organisations were not confident that
they had a single view of their legacy data, although they
recognised the importance of good quality data to their
business.
Stefan Foster, NCC’s managing director, said, “Agility is a
significant competitive advantage and inflexible legacy systems can
restrict growth. The problem is widespread – in organisations with
50 or more IT staff, between 25% and 50% of applications are
considered legacy, and many are business critical systems.”
Most of those responding to the survey were rebuilding their
enterprise processes to regain agility, Foster added. But he
warned, “The challenge is how to futureproof new systems to avoid
them becoming next year’s legacy problem. You need a well thought
through road-map.”