Start your 2014 Technology Massacre now!

Mar 14, 2014

Sogeti Labs

Start killing applications. Start killing platforms. Start killing customizations. Start killing devices. Any technology that is older than, say, eight years should no longer be allowed to live inside your company. Kill it: ruthless, methodical and determined. Ok, maybe ten years, or twelve? Whatever your cut-off, there should be an expiration date on technology. For one, because of support, patches etc. Then there are the skills to maintain and the simple fact that you’d amass a large variety of technologies unless you clean house regularly. And I’m not even talking about the security risks that you may have collected over time through customizations and exceptions. 

I know we’ve always had upgrades and migrations, but I have the feeling that today things are different. With the massive move to the cloud, and the uptake of business-provisioned technology, you don’t have a lot of time to clean up. The competitive advantage of anything over eight years old is probably minimal and no longer weighs up against extra maintenance costs or slow-to-change-premiums that you are paying. Competitors who start afresh or who embrace newer platforms will start outperforming you by their ability to change and integrate. If you look at the platforms the large vendors are offering today, they are so different from what was available only eight years ago that more capabilities can be had with less effort and ultimately cost. The potential of technology available today is really limitless—  it’s time to focus on creativity and innovation!

Or are we stuck? Can we never move the data? Could we never make the business case? Are we too busy to clean? I’m pretty optimistic, but correct me when I’m wrong!

About the author

Sogeti Labs

SogetiLabs gathers distinguished technology leaders from around the Sogeti world. It is an initiative explaining not how IT works, but what IT means for business.

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