84.7% of Companies Have Systems IT Admins 'Want to Avoid Touching'! Survey on Legacy System Reality
Key facts
- 84.7% of Companies Have Systems IT Admins 'Want to Avoid Touching'! Survey on Legacy System Reality
- A survey by NTT DATA Business Brains revealed that 84.7% of IT staff manage legacy systems they would prefer not to touch. With 80% reporting a mismatch between documentation and reality, and 70% facing system failure risks upon veteran retirement, the crisis in IT maintenance is severe.
- Source: PR Times
- Date: May 19, 2026
Direct answer
A survey by NTT DATA Business Brains revealed that 84.7% of IT staff manage legacy systems they would prefer not to touch. With 80% reporting a mismatch between documentation and reality, and 70% facing system failure risks upon veteran retirement, the crisis in IT maintenance is severe.
- Citation
- 84.7% of Companies Have Systems IT Admins 'Want to Avoid Touching'! Survey on Legacy System Reality (May 19, 2026), PR Times
- Source
- PR Times
- Date
- May 19, 2026
A survey by NTT DATA Business Brains revealed that 84.7% of IT staff manage legacy systems they would prefer not to touch. With 80% reporting a mismatch between documentation and reality, and 70% facing system failure risks upon veteran retirement, the crisis in IT maintenance is severe.
📋 Article Processing Timeline
- 📰 Published: May 19, 2026 at 21:30
- 🔍 Collected: May 19, 2026 at 13:01
- 🤖 AI Analyzed: May 27, 2026 at 10:55 (189h 53m after Collected)
### Key Findings
- **84.7% of Admins Have Systems They 'Want to Avoid Touching'**
When asked if there are systems they feel they 'want to avoid touching as much as possible' or 'feel depressed when a modification request arrives,' 84.7% answered 'Yes.' The psychological exhaustion is driven by spaghetti code resulting from years of patchwork modifications and an inability to predict the impact range of changes.
- **Documentation Discrepancy Affects Nearly 80%**
Combined, 'Almost completely disconnected' (43.9%) and 'No documentation exists' (5.6%) represent nearly half of the respondents in a critical state. Including 'Partially inconsistent' (29.1%), nearly 80% of companies find their design documents untrustworthy, forcing staff into 'reverse engineering' by deciphering source code line by line.
- **Over 70% Risk System Stoppage Due to Veteran Retirement**
Regarding the impact if a specific veteran admin retired suddenly, 59.8% feared 'some subsystems or tools would stop functioning,' and 15.6% reported a severe risk where 'multiple critical systems, including core systems, could stop.' Over 70% of operations rely precariously on specific individuals.
Legacy systems, often built with old languages or unique frameworks, are difficult to hand over to younger staff. Resolving this dependency and system opacity is urgent for promoting Digital Transformation (DX).
FAQ
What psychological attitude do IT professionals have towards legacy systems?
84.7% of respondents reported that they feel a strong aversion or fear towards systems they would prefer not to touch, and feel gloomy when requests for modifications come in.
How consistent are the system documentation and the actual system?
Approximately 50% of companies reported that their documentation is 'almost completely inconsistent' or 'non-existent.' Including partial inconsistencies, about 80% of companies find their documentation unreliable.
What risks are associated with the departure of specific veteran staff members?
More than 70% of cases report risks due to dependency on specific individuals, with 15.6% indicating that there is a risk of multiple critical systems, including core systems, shutting down.
What are the main technical factors that make legacy systems 'undesirable to touch'?
The primary factors include the transformation into spaghetti code due to years of modifications, the occurrence of unexpected bugs from fixes (due to unclear impact scope), and the black-boxing of systems due to lack of documentation.
Which company conducted this survey and what related product do they offer?
The survey was conducted by NTT Data Business Brains Co., Ltd. They offer a no-code cloud database called 'Slopebase' and support the de-black-boxing of systems.