Technical debt—much like financial debt—is a cumulative beast. It represents all the extra hours and resources poured into keeping a solution technically current, often without making real progress toward innovation. It’s like a bucket with a hole in its base: no matter how much water you pour in, the water level barely rises. In this case, that’s because needless upgrades and patching keep draining your efforts.
Where it relates specifically to software systems, technical debt can stem from decisions made in the moment—those “quick fixes” or stopgap measures that seem like the easiest solution at the time. These might involve implementing solutions to plug a gap in your infrastructure or rushing to adopt new ERP software functionality, even when it doesn’t fully align with your strategy or staff expertise. Over time, these little compromises accumulate into big frustrations, leaving you spending all your time involved with patch management over issues – rather than addressing root causes. It’s like spending your entire paycheck on debt repayments without being able to save or invest for your future. It’s incredibly frustrating.
The good news is that paying down this technical debt is possible. It’s not an overnight fix, but with the right strategy, you can gain time and budget to gradually reduce that debt while balancing affordability, innovation, and ROI.
Iain Saunderson is CTO at Spinnaker Support.
Why We Accumulate Technical Debt
In the ERP world, the dominant players—Oracle, SAP, and others—significantly contribute to the accumulation of technical debt. Their strategies are built around locking you into their ecosystems–pushing you to upgrade on their timelines and, crucially, use their in-house support and maintenance, preventing you from focusing on projects that drive true value for the business.
Let’s be clear: upgrading your software system doesn’t inherently create technical debt. The problem lies in how upgrades are imposed. It’s the pressure to upgrade before you’re ready or to align with vendor roadmaps that don’t match your business priorities.
For example, SAP’s push toward S/4HANA adoption has left many businesses scrambling to meet tight deadlines, fearing the loss of support for older systems. Support for SAP’s widely used ECC software will end in 2027, with an optional extended maintenance period available until 2030 at a significant premium. This impending deadline is pressuring organizations to upgrade to S/4HANA, even if they are unprepared for the transition. Many businesses face challenges in terms of the time, resources, and financial investment required to migrate, leaving them at risk of running unsupported systems and exposing themselves to potential compliance and security vulnerabilities.
Similarly, Oracle’s aggressive move to cloud-based solutions has forced customers into costly transitions under the very legitimate concern that they’ll fail to meet critical compliance and security standards if they don’t. Oracle frequently emphasizes the security and compliance advantages of migrating to its cloud services, leaving customers with limited alternatives. The message is clear: You’ve got to move to the cloud—security implications demand it. How’s that for flexibility, independence, and control? This approach places enterprises in a difficult position, pressuring them to adopt Oracle’s roadmap rather than sticking to their own strategy.
Then there are the maintenance contracts. These multi-million-dollar agreements often apply to aging products with limited ROI, yet they’re non-negotiable. Worse, the costs often escalate annually, leaving enterprises paying more and more… and getting back less and less.
Technical debt often starts with compromises–choosing systems based on budget constraints or sleepwalking into vendor lock-in. Over time, these hidden costs—mandatory upgrades, expensive support, and abandoned legacy systems—pile up. While upgrades themselves don’t directly cause technical debt, they can exacerbate it, but not being able to focus on your business goals.
The Cycle of Technical Debt
So, your aging systems are no longer meeting your needs, and your technical debt is at an all-time high. Every effort to keep things running feels like pouring water into that leaky bucket—you’re working harder but making no real progress.
So, what can you do?
While there’s no silver bullet that will allow you to eliminate technical debt instantly, it is possible to pay down this debt sustainably while prioritizing growth and innovation. Start by rethinking how you manage and support your current systems.
Breaking Free
You can’t always get rid of aging systems, but you can support them more effectively. Third-party software support offers a way to regain control over your IT strategy. Think of it as fast-tracking your journey out of technical debt.
Third-party software support shifts the focus away from vendor-imposed roadmaps to your unique business needs. If you need a highly customized setup or prefer a best-of-breed approach, your support partner enables you to maintain stable, familiar systems while selectively modernizing the parts that align with your strategy.
And the cost savings? On average, enterprises save over 60 percent on maintenance and support contracts when they switch to third-party software support. This frees up budget for innovation, employee training, maintaining existing systems, and ensuring they operate as expected— without the unnecessary, vendor-mandated bells and whistles.
Strategic Innovation Over Vendor Roadmaps
Vendors don’t want you to know about these alternatives because it threatens their entire business model, which is built around those lucrative maintenance contracts. They rely on keeping you locked into their cycle of mandatory upgrades and ever escalating fees. But technical debt doesn’t have to be an inevitable cost of doing business.
With third-party software support you can keep your systems supported, compliant, and aligned with your business goals—all while freeing time and budget to reduce technical debt. You’re no longer forced to upgrade for the sake of compliance or to access critical updates and support.
Enterprises that break free from vendor lock-in experience a twofold benefit: reduced technical debt and the freedom to allocate resources toward strategic innovation. By rethinking how you manage your software lifecycle, you’ll finally be able to pay down that debt and plan your future systems on your terms—not your vendor’s.
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