Enterprise-sized companies dedicate an average of 28 percent of software budgets to upgrades, migrations, and licensing changes that IT leaders say provide no business benefit, according to a survey of 2,018 chief information officers and senior IT decision-makers commissioned by Origina, a software maintenance provider.
The respondents—roughly half from U.S. companies with at least 10,000 employees and annual revenues exceeding $1 billion—revealed the structural weakness of enterprise IT departments in negotiations with major vendors. Ninety-five percent reported their organizations paid for vendor-driven changes in the past three years that they believed would reduce performance, reliability, or business value. Fifty-three percent said they had made such payments more than once.
The dynamic reflects a fundamental power imbalance. Seventy-six percent of respondents said their organization has minimal leverage with major software vendors. Eighty percent stated that moving away from these vendors would cause substantial operational disruption—making acceptance of unwanted upgrades a rational business choice despite the cost.
"When the choice is between an unwanted upgrade and losing support for critical systems, accepting the upgrade becomes inevitable," said Tomás O'Leary, CEO and founder of Origina and one of the report's authors. "The resulting costs appear in budgets, engineering time, and innovation projects that never receive funding."
The budget diversion is concrete. Thirty-six percent of respondents cited innovation as an area receiving less funding as a result. Security investments dropped for 31 percent, human resources for 32 percent, and customer-facing initiatives for 31 percent.
The operational burden extends beyond line items. James McGlennon, a former CIO and global EVP at Liberty Mutual, said an upgrade cycle can occupy top technical workers for "the better part of a year." He emphasized this is not a one-time cost but an annual recurrence where skilled personnel are diverted from competitive differentiation.
The structural problem has generated political momentum. Ninety-one percent of surveyed IT leaders would support legislation offering enterprises protections similar to those available to long-term residential tenants—a striking consensus that reflects frustration with vendor terms. Only 1 percent opposed such legislation.
The report was conducted by third-party research consultancy Censuswide. Origina, which provides independent maintenance for enterprise software, commissioned the study as part of its positioning around software independence and cost recovery for IT departments.
