Survey: IT leaders in Singapore do not know the value of their IT debt

T.C. Seow | June 19, 2012

New global research confirms IT organisations need a more robust application portfolio management strategy to curb IT debt and inform mainframe investments.

The Micro Focus global research study also polled CIOs and IT directors on the modernisation choices available to them to ascertain preferences.

In Singapore, some 32 percent of respondents said they would prefer to further develop code, and about 52 percent would replace the application with a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) package.

Of those choosing COTS, 52 percent believed it would be easier to implement over the alternatives, 69 percent said it was less risky, 15 percent thought it would result in cost reduction, and 38 percent cited issues with the availability of mainframe and COBOL skills.

Application modernisation plans
Other findings for Singapore from the Micro Focus global study include:

• Some 8 percent confirm they had already started to extend access to modernised mainframe applications from mobile devices (versus the global average of 14 percent), with 36 percent planning to start within the next 12 months (versus the global average of 49 percent).

• About 12 percent stated they had already started moving mainframe applications to the cloud (versus the global average of 16 percent), with 28 percent making plans for the next year (versus the global average of 42 percent)

David Taylor, President Asia Pacific & Japan, Micro Focus said: "Overall, in Singapore, 88 percent of respondents plan to modernise at least one key application in the next 12 months. In order of priority, they included human resources, business process management, project and portfolio management, customer relationship management, finance and accounting, and enterprise resource planning applications."

He added: "The top three factors most likely to influence decisions on mainframe application modernisation included reducing hardware and software licensing costs, increasing reliability, productivity and speed of operations and supporting IT systems for future innovation and business growth."

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