Legacy technology highlighted as a direct obstacle for 10% of enterprises

More than four in every ten enterprises in the UK report significant financial obstacles in their quest to realise digital transformation ambitions, according to research released today.  The survey, commissioned by Contentstack, a leading content experience platform, and carried out by Vanson Bourne found that 42% of companies require substantial investment to implement the digital transformation technology they need.

Putting these plans into context and showing what such investment will be spent on, a fifth of companies (21%) cite the need for substantial spending specifically to replace legacy technology.  Most acutely, 1 in ten companies (10%) see current technology investments as a direct obstacle to making their digital transformation plans a reality.

“Even before the pandemic, digital transformation was heralded as the saviour of many businesses and industries, and since COVID this expectation has only increased,” said Sonja Kotrotsos, product marketing, Contentstack and VP, Mach Alliance.  “But in stark contrast, our research shows that just 27% of companies say their current technology is enough to realise their digital transformation ambitions.  To be frank, we had expected to see much higher investment, more plans underway and a corresponding level of increased confidence.

“We are however, encouraged by the findings that there is broad consensus across business, IT and marketing leaders.  Approximately a quarter of the respondents in each group (26%) say current technology and future ambitions are not aligned at all.  This would suggest that there will be a consensus of change and it could soon be open season on how enterprises look to realise their digital transformation ambitions as they explore new options when it comes to investing in enterprise software.”

Contentstack is a founding member of the MACH Alliance; a non-profit co-operation of 15 member companies aiming to introduce a new, open and best-of-breed enterprise technology ecosystem. The Alliance demonstrates how businesses can benefit from open tech ecosystems that are Microservices based, API-first, Cloud-native SaaS and Headless.

“It is pretty clear from these figures that there has to be a big shift in how businesses look at enterprise software investment,” said Kelly Goetsch, president of the MACH Alliance.  “We are moving from legacy systems being not just added weight that a business has to carry, but an actual roadblock to that business evolving.”

A summary report of the findings can be downloaded here and an ROI calculator to assist in evaluation of technology investment can be found via www.contentstack.com.