Legacy tech upgrades cost the average business nearly $3M last year

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Dive Brief:

  • Legacy tech upgrades cost the average business $2.9 million in 2023, a SnapLogic survey of 750 IT decision-makers found.
  • Nearly two-thirds of businesses invest more than $2 million on maintaining and upgrading legacy systems, according to the report published Thursday.
  • More than 3 in 5 IT leaders said their company’s data stack is experiencing a moderate to severe negative impact due to technical debt, including outdated code.  

Dive Insight:

Despite ambitious goals to innovate and streamline operations, businesses face significant roadblocks when modernizing legacy technology systems. 

Challenges are inherent in major technology upgrades, especially for legacy systems, according to Jeremiah Stone, CTO of SnapLogic. 

More than three-quarters of IT decision-makers said their teams spend 5 to 25 hours a week updating and patching legacy systems, according to the survey. Legacy tech can also sap productivity and impact the bottom line. 

Maintenance and development costs continue after the initial implementation phase, Stone said. Companies also struggle to dissolve technical debt when legacy systems are intertwined with existing workloads, making them imperative to everyday operations. 

Legacy tech is putting emerging tech ambitions at risk as well. Nearly one-third of respondents said up to 25% of their legacy systems are unable to support AI tools and workloads, according to the survey. 

“This is a time for CIOs and CTOs to not only be creative on how they do more with less while building out their GenAI initiatives and projects but also leapfrog the competition with calculated investments,” Stone said. Executives should prioritize projects that reduce technical debt, create new revenue streams or democratize technologies, according to Stone.