A survey commissioned by Origina and conducted by third-party research firm Censuswide examined software spending practices at large enterprises. The study polled 2,018 chief information officers and senior IT decision-makers at companies with at least 10,000 employees and at least $1 billion in annual revenue, with roughly half of respondents based in the US and the remainder in the United Kingdom.
The research found that enterprise-sized businesses allocate an average of 28 percent of their software budgets toward upgrades, migrations, and licensing changes that their IT leadership views as unwanted. Most significantly, 95 percent of respondents reported that their organizations have paid for vendor-driven changes within the past three years that IT believed would reduce performance, reliability, or business value. More than half of those surveyed indicated this has occurred repeatedly.
The survey attributed this pattern to IT leaders’ limited negotiating power. Seventy-six percent of respondents stated their organizations have very little leverage in vendor negotiations, while 80 percent indicated that switching away from major software providers would create substantial operational disruption. The report noted that all survey participants currently operate at least one system from IBM, HCL, VMware/Broadcom, or SAP at significant scale.
According to the findings, mandatory upgrades consume resources that would otherwise support other organizational priorities. Respondents identified innovation, human resources, security, and customer-facing investments as areas receiving reduced funding due to upgrade costs. Additionally, executives noted that upgrade cycles can occupy experienced technical staff for extended periods, creating ongoing capacity constraints that limit organizations’ ability to pursue competitive differentiation initiatives.
The survey found strong support among IT leaders for regulatory intervention, with 91 percent indicating support for laws providing enterprises protections comparable to those available to long-term residential tenants. Report authors suggested that IT organizations negotiate exit terms and conditions during initial vendor agreements to gain greater control over software budgets.
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