Over 50 percent of adults 55 and older retired within the past year. Meanwhile, an article published by CIO tells us that the shape of who companies consider most valuable is changing rapidly. The pandemic seems to have jump-started a season of rapid change in IT, and companies with legacy systems are feeling this shift the hardest.
Skills shortage
With the increasing retirement rate of baby boomers reaching a fever pitch, companies have been forced to source their legacy systems talent elsewhere. Unfortunately, higher education has very little focus on mainframes and teaching legacy skills needed to maintain them. Newer companies are mostly Cloud native, so the skillsets that are emerging from universities are focused on modern application development and Cloud environments. Organisations replacing the retired mainframe experts often find that the new hires lack the mainframe expertise and knowledge required and are unfamiliar with mainframe technology and legacy environment.
Maintenance costs
Maintenance costs are rising as the knowledge required to support legacy systems is becoming scarcer. Mainframe applications have passed through multiple different hands over the decades, often without proper documentation. Without the right mainframe expertise, organisations find themselves under continued pressure to transfer this technical debt to capable hands elsewhere.
As a result, organisation leaders outsource this work, paying contractors and developers more money to maintain their legacy systems.
Unsafe infrastructure
As subject matter experts retire and the systems they presided over become more outdated, fewer adequate fixes can be deployed resulting in a less secure IT estate. This can put mission-critical business operations at risk.
It’s time for your organization to modernise
As the pool of capable skills drains, the risk of status quo rises. Choosing not to modernise in this environment puts you directly in the crosshairs of rising costs and increased risks.
What do you do?
Your modernisation options are vast, and our team of experts has seen and done it all. If you’re wondering where to start, the best thing you can do is undergo an assessment. We offer legacy assessments as a service, or you can perform them yourself using our purpose-built platform ModPaaS.
Regardless of which you choose, extricating your company from the shackles of legacy systems is a tough charge, and anyone who has undergone such an exercise will advise you to have modernisation expertise at the ready. We can help with that too.