Here's why bosses should not fully trust their IT specialists

Nearly half of Singapore’s IT Leaders do not even know when to update corp apps.

An overwhelming three quarters even admitted to having an unclear picture of their corp apps review strategies.

A recent study by Micro Focus showed that some 48% of Singapore’s IT decision makers have admitted they do not know the value of their IT debt, creating a hidden balance sheet liability for those organizations as well as a growing business risk.

IT Debt is defined as the cost of clearing the backlog of maintenance to bring the corporate applications portfolio up to date.

Gartner estimates that IT debt will break the trillion dollar mark globally in the next five years. However, 36% of local survey respondents confirmed they don’t have a structured process for measuring and managing their IT debt today or don’t know if they have one, and 25% of those without a process are not planning to implement one.

Despite their IT debt admissions, 88% of local Micro Focus research respondents confirmed that they have a structured review process and strategy for their application portfolio, which they review on average every four months. However, an overwhelming three quarters (72%) of local respondents admitted to having an unclear picture when questioned on the detail.

For example:
 Nearly one fourth (24%) said it contained legacy applications that no one knew how to update and that they were afraid to touch
 Some 13% confirmed that they have redundant applications eating up unnecessary MIPS without the means to identify and retire them
 Another 20% claimed merger and acquisition activity had created an unclear picture of the applications they have, the relationship between those applications and what should be retired

“The research results shows that IT organizations in Singapore are tinkering under the bonnet with their application review and updates today rather than installing a new engine, creating a frightening balance sheet liability,” said Stuart McGill, Chief Technology Officer at Micro Focus.

“This approach is unlikely to create a fit-for-purpose application portfolio capable of delivering flawless execution of operational services to support business needs every minute of every day. Over this decade, IT organizations will have to transform from project-obsessed organizations to asset-obsessed ones, particularly if they are to get maximum value from the average 29% of annual IT budgets that respondents confirmed were allocated to operating, sustaining and improving the integrity of mainframe applications and their assets,” he added.

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