Outdated Tech Holding Back Innovation in Organizations

A new report by a leading global IT infrastructure and services company, NTT DATA has revealed that 80 per cent of organizations have agreed that inadequate or outdated technology is holding back organizational progress and innovation efforts.

In fact, 94 per cent of C-suite executives believe legacy infrastructure is greatly hindering their business agility.

These findings come from NTT DATA’s inaugural Lifecycle Management Report. The report, which leverages 25 years of data-led insights from NTT DATA, explores the challenges and opportunities that exist for organizations as they navigate infrastructure lifecycle management.

The research was conducted over 2022 and 2023, gathering data from over 248 million active assets across 130 countries and supported with responses from up to 1400 senior technology decision makers.

Lifecycle management is a critical enabler of business success. Unfortunately, rapid modernization, and the proliferation of technology consumption models, coupled with an increasingly complicated and fragmented supplier ecosystem, make it difficult for many organisations to adequately maintain their technology infrastructure in a way that fosters business agility and innovation.

Compounding issues, the report finds that more than two thirds (69%) of currently active hardware (with scheduled last day of support) will no longer be supported by 2027.

According to the report, just 51 per cent of enterprises have fully aligned their technology approach to their business strategy needs, while 71 per cent of organizations say their network assets are mostly ageing or obsolete.

Unfortunately, lifecycle management can also have an even more direct impact on operations. Misaligned lifecycle patterns can result in inappropriate coverage levels, laborintensive renewals, extended incident resolution times, security breaches, and even costly license violations and compliance issues.

Gary Middleton, Vice President of Networking GTM at NTT DATA, said: “Infrastructure lifecycles are a critical part of the IT management process. They represent an opportunity and a challenge for leadership, as effective lifecycles can result in huge business benefits – from increased efficiency to fostering greater innovation. “However, inefficient lifecycle management can equally be a meaningful operational blocker, posing numerous risks to security and business continuity.

“Through the Lifecycle Management Report, our aim is to help organizations enhance their infrastructure lifecycle processes and unlock the huge benefits doing so presents.”

It would be recalled that an earlier report by PwC had indicated that in Africa, the tech-ecosystem had experienced impressive growth and is evolving rapidly.

It noted that there was a high level of optimism about the potential that the continent has to offer by harnessing the strength of its largely young, rapidly growing and technology savvy population.

“Nigeria is one of the continent’s more established startup ecosystems, with firms like Interswitch dating as far back as 2002. “Albeit the growing tech-sector in the Nigerian economy and significant private funding secured by African tech start-ups over the years, the tech sector is grossly underrepresented in the Nigerian capital market “ the report said.

It also highlighter that the future of countries, businesses, and individuals would be more dependent than ever on their adoption of technology, adding that economic vibrancy and wealth creation in developed countries had been associated with technological advancements and digital innovation & transformation.

“Today, most of the companies with the world’s largest market capitalizations are tech companies that generate much of their revenue from the digital ecosystems they created. This is a significant change from the early 2000s to this current time,” the report added.