Modernizing IT architectures is no small task, but it’s one nearly every enterprise is now facing in order to build better applications, innovate faster, and stay competitive. 

The challenges enterprises are facing around IT architecture modernization are real and various. A survey we recently conducted with Dimensional Research has illuminated specifically what these challenges are and how IT executives are trying to surmount them. 

We surveyed more than 300 IT execs who work at companies with at least 5,000 employees—80% were from companies with 10K or more employees and 46% were from companies with 50K or more, and 77% of the respondents were VP and above. 

The results showed that organizations are modernizing their architecture for a variety of reasons:

• 79% hope to reduce costs by using resources more effectively
• 68% aim to increase customer satisfaction
• 59% want to increase employee efficiency and satisfaction
• 55% seek to use data-driven insights to improve customer engagement and increase revenue
• 43% plan to use technology to enter new markets
• 42% are investing in new architecture to remain competitive
• 42% intend to use new technology to grow existing markets and their customers base

But shockingly, while 100% of organizations are modernizing their technology architecture, virtually all of them (99%) are struggling with architecture modernization. 

They cited several factors behind this struggle:

• 56% need to manage costs without sacrificing uptime and performance
• 46% say cloud options are constantly evolving so they need architectures that are flexible
• 45% indicate that time-to-market pressures are increasing
• 43% have a hard time finding the skills needed to deliver innovative solutions
• 41% agree it’s difficult to scale as environments become more complex
• 40% say that business stakeholders have unrealistic expectations
• 39% struggle with data silos while having multiple applications that need the same data
• 38% lack the experience needed to develop modernization strategies

The report dives deeper into a number of additional topics, including:

• Why organizations are increasingly embracing flexible architecture modernization in their applications, including hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructure, containers, microservices, container orchestration, and open source solutions
• The role data and databases play in pushing enterprises toward architecture modernization
• Why open source solutions, in particular, are taking on an increasingly prominent role in large organizations

Download the full report to learn more.