How technical debt can damage business agility and competitiveness

A “deploy now, fix later” attitude can speed processes along, but at what cost?

New research from technology services provider Claranet shows that technical debt has become a significant issue for 84% of organisations, claiming it limits “their ability to respond quickly to customer demand with new software feature releases” and causes “a significant drag on business agility and competitiveness”.

The study, which surveyed 100 IT decision-makers from UK-based companies, also found that business leaders aren’t taking the necessary steps to mitigate technical debt. Despite being aware of these issues, eight in ten respondents do not have a reduction programme in place. And while nearly a fifth have plans to reduce legacy challenges, they don’t have a clear vision in place of how to do so.

“Technical debt is clearly something that businesses recognise as an issue, but many are still a long way behind when it comes to implementing concrete plans to mitigate risk,” says Alex McLoughlin, head of solution design at Claranet. “The fact that a lot of companies are now working to deliver a hybrid cloud strategy and adopting an infrastructure as code approach means that technical debt is now a pressing issue, not just for the development team, but for the wider business as well.”

Technical debt varies, Technical debt affects organisations in different ways. Andrew Rogoyski, innovation director at Roke Manor Research, explains there are several forms. The first type, he says, is “deliberate debt, commonly arising from the urgent need to get operational software into use, often forcing a deliberate shortcut to be taken to save time”.