US Federal survey results from 185 IT decision makers working in the government that reported having legacy environments within their agency. Learn more. https://accntu.re/2NnRbBN

1. DIGITAL
DECOUPLING
U.S. Federal survey results
ACCENTURE FEDERAL SERVICES

2. Copyright © 2018 Accenture. All rights reserved.
Frequent CIO turnover is one factor limiting strategic planning
Short-term vision hampers agencies
2
How many years out does your organization plan or
build out its information technology strategy/vision
(including investments)?
How many people have held the position of CIO, or
comparable top IT title, in your organization during the
past 10 years?
26% 5-6 years
2% 7-9 years
1% 10 years or more
10% 1-2 years
62% 2-4 years
32%
30%
30%
6%
2%
1
2
3
4
5
More than 5

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One-third of systems are legacy, consuming 20% of IT budgets in order to maintain
Legacy systems are common
3
Approximately what portion of your core,
mainstream systems do you consider to be legacy
systems? (average)
Approximately what portion of your IT budget is
allocated to maintaining legacy systems? (average)
32.7%
of legacy systems
20.8%
of budget that goes
into legacy systems

4. Copyright © 2018 Accenture. All rights reserved. 4
Top 3 responses (and 4 of 6) highlight impact on agility
Quickly creating innovative new products or services
Quickly creating innovative new operating models
Quickly creating innovative new operational processes
Securing government systems and data from cyber threats and attacks
Responding quickly to changing mission conditions and needs
Collaborating across agencies to provide personalized customer services
Achieving the full benefits of analytics-driven insight
Building citizen trust
41%
39%
38%
37%
35%
37% Improving efficiency
Enhancing our citizens experience35%
Partnering with other organizations including those in our ecosystem35%
34%
Augmenting our employees’ capabilities with new technologies32%
32%
28%
Legacy is a big innovation constraint

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Executives report mixed feelings about legacy systems
Legacy – love ‘em & hate ‘em
5
Please indicate your agreement with each of the following statements:
Our legacy systems contain trapped value--data and/or capabilities that can be
used for innovative new products, services, processes and business models but
are not being leveraged.
31%51%17%1%
Although our legacy systems hold information that is critical to our organization,
we must navigate to new technologies in a way that secures the best of both
worlds.
42%45%12%
1%
1%
Our organization’s existence will be threatened if we don’t update our technology so we
can innovate faster and more efficiently.
30%45%24%2%
If I could, I would like to tear up and replace all of our organization's core systems.38%43%17%2%
Strongly agree
Agree
Neither agree nor disagree
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Don’t know

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Server-based front office systems
(e.g., CRM, sales force automation, citizen or field service support)
Server-based back office systems
(e.g., ERP, inventory control, manufacturing, supply chain & procurement)
Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) running on a service bus
Server-based mission systems (COTS or custom)
Mainframe/large system-based applications
None of the above
55%
51%
48%
44%
39%
41% Server-based data warehouses
Home-grown applications38%
Monolithic, cache-focused storage systems36%
1%
Which of the following technologies is your organization replacing or modernizing in the next five years?
Modest focus on home-grown/mainframe applications
Agencies modernizing CRM, ERP

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Monolithic, cache-focused storage systems
Server-based data warehouses
Mainframe/large system-based applications
Server-based back office systems (e.g., ERP, inventory control, manufacturing,
supply chain & procurement)
Server-based front office systems (e.g., CRM, sales force automation, citizen or
field service support)
None of the above
35%
35%
31%
26%
23%
24% Home-grown applications
Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) running on a service bus19%
Server-based mission systems (COTS or custom)10%
1%
Which of the following technologies would you like your organization to replace or modernize in the next five years?
Satisfied with Server-based mission systems
Storage, data, & mainframes top wish list

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Agencies embrace multiple approaches to mitigate legacy risks
Technical debt incurs real costs
8
Please indicate the extent to which you agree or disagree with each of the
following statements:
Technical debt in our legacy systems makes our IT function much less
responsive to changes in our market.
34%45%19%
Technical debt in our legacy systems severely limits our IT function’s ability to be
innovative.
47%36%17%
1%
Technical debt greatly increases our organization’s IT costs.34%49%17%1%
Technical debt in our legacy systems greatly limits our ability to migrate to new
technologies.
34%47%18%1%
Technical debt has caused discontinuity points in our organization.*37%44%18%1%
Strongly agree
Agree
Neither agree nor disagree
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Don’t know
Technical debt in our legacy systems severely limits our IT function’s ability to add
new functionality to our systems.
30%50%20%1%
Technical debt in our legacy systems is remediated before migrating to new
cloud-based IT.
30%50%20%1%
* Points in time where business-critical systems either chronically break down, decline or become so inadequate, sluggish or inflexible that the organization
is forced to suspend or significantly slow down investments on innovative new systems until it consolidates, replaces or rearchitects its existing IT systems.

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Our core external citizen-facing systems “front office” (sales and marketing,
citizen service, mobile apps, e-commerce, etc.)
Our core internal enterprise systems-”back office” (ERP, HR, finance, sourcing &
procurement, manufacturing, etc.)
Our core mission systems
Back-office and front-office systems
Back-office and mission systems
48%
30%
11%
5%
1%
5% All three: back-office, front-office and mission systems
Front-office and mission systems1%
Which of your organization’s core systems contain some form of technical debt?
Mission systems appear to receive more timely updates
Citizen-facing systems have most debt

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85% of systems require modernization to migrate to the cloud
Not enough investment to refresh
10
What percentage of your organization’s IT budget is
spent on remediating technical debt (average
percentage)?
If your organization has migrated a legacy system to a
cloud environment, did you have to correct problems
with your current system before moving to the cloud?
85%
Yes
13%
No
2%
Not applicable / We have
not migrated a legacy
system to a cloud
environment
16.4%
of IT budget spent on
remediating technical
debt

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Tracking when new systems are taking on technical debt
Reporting on technical debt to a C-suite executive committee
Assigning responsibility for technical debt tracking and remediation to an executive or
manager within IT
Educating line managers running their own systems about technical debt
Developing or following explicit guidelines to manage technical debt
Prioritizing technical debt remediation efforts
46%
44%
43%
42%
41%
41%
Assigning responsibility for technical debt tracking and reporting to finance
executive
Estimating the cost of remediating technical debt38%
Tracking which existing systems have technical debt37%
36%
Which is your organization currently doing to manage technical debt?
No technique employed by more than half of agencies
More can be done to manage debt
None of the above1%

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Most want to manage continually, few do
Debt needs ongoing oversight
12
To what extent do you agree that your organization
needs to manage technical debt on a continual basis
going forward?
25%
Strongly agree
Agree
Neither agree nor disagree
Disagree
Strongly disagree
74%
1%
Does your organization manage technical debt on a
continual, periodic or occasional basis?
36%
Continual
Periodic
Occasional
55%
9%

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Never
Once
2-3 times
More than 3 times
4%
29%
58%
9%
1% Don’t know
How many times has your organization experienced a discontinuity point within the past 10 years?
96% of federal agencies experience outage; 67% at least twice
Widespread discontinuity
Definition of discontinuity points: Points in
time where business-critical systems either
chronically break down, decline or become so
inadequate, sluggish or inflexible that the
organization is forced to suspend or
significantly slow down investments on
innovative new systems until it consolidates,
replaces or rearchitects its existing IT systems.
96% experience outages 67% experience outages at least twice

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More than 1 in 4 customers impacted at 46% of companies
Discontinuities and outages
interrupt services
14
What percent of citizens served suffered service interruptions or delays due to the
[discontinuity point/IT-impacting unplanned outage]?
44%54% 2%
Zero percent 1%-25% 26%-50% 51%-75% 76% or more
Base = Had discontinuity point/unplanned outage; n=184

15. Copyright © 2018 Accenture. All rights reserved. 15
Inability to adopt new operating models
Inability to launch new products or services
Inability to carry out needed process change
Unable to meet SLAs or other commitments
Loss of trust in our organization by citizens
Loss of partners
50%
48%
48%
40%
33%
40% Failure to execute the mission or perform operations effectively
Loss of reputation/negative publicity30%
Loss of customers24%
18%
Which of the following, if any, were the other consequences of the [discontinuity point/IT-impacting unplanned outage] on
your organization?
Inability to introduce new operating models, services & process changes
Discontinuities constrain strategy

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Our aging systems were unable to process the workload from mobile
apps and websites
Organization unable to integrate systems and/or data
Lack of necessary talent (internal or external)
Security breakdown
Our aging systems were unable to process data from external sources such
as partners
48%
48%
48%
46%
40%
40% Obsolete and/or spaghetti (complex, point-to-point) IT architecture
Poorly written or designed software code35%
Which of the following are the main technical reasons for your [discontinuity point/IT-impacting unplanned outages]?
Legacy systems often lack capacity to support modern requirements
Many technical factors for outages

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Systems run by departments other than IT were incompatible or were not
maintained properly
Insufficient investments in updating and maintaining impacted system
Consolidation and restructuring left organization with multiple systems that are difficult to
integrate
Risk of discontinuity was underestimated
Legacy systems considered too complicated to safely remediate
Scale creep – many more users than initially budgeted, designed for or planned
45%
43%
43%
42%
41%
41%
Systems designers and software developers rushed to get the system out the door,
and didn’t go back to fix code with problems
Problems were left to be solved in the future34%
Scope creep – systems were used for much more than initially designed29%
28%
Which of the following would you consider a root cause of your [discontinuity point(s)/IT-impacting unplanned outages]?
More proactive management could mitigate many factors
Poor planning underlies outages
Other investments offer greater ROI than maintaining or repairing older systems21%

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Simplifying business processes, products and services
43%
43%
43%
42%
42%
42%
Continuously investing in existing systems to ensure high quality and continuous
system delivery
Tracking and, if necessary, fixing new software code that was rushed to production
and may contain flaws
42%
Ensuring our core systems are loosely coupled or layered to avoid
interdependencies
39%
Which of the following techniques is your organization using to avoid [discontinuity point(s)/IT-impacting unplanned outages]?
Agencies embrace multiple approaches to reduce legacy risks
No silver bullet for complexity
Developing a plan for end-of-life for each system, and replace accordingly
Standardizing IT infrastructure and application environments
Fragmenting systems by agency or geography to avoid overly complex systems
Avoiding the integration of convoluted, overly complex ‘spaghetti code’

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Federal agencies pursuing all of the above strategy
Many routes to modernization
19
Which of the following architectural techniques is your organization currently using or planning
to use to modernize existing legacy systems?
Build new services on top of legacy using APIs, microservices and cloud36%41%21%
Replace legacy systems with a new package software solution (non-SaaS)44%39%16%
2%
Connect legacy systems to cloud services, then remove redundant parts of the
legacy systems
43%36%21%1%
Procure SaaS services that replace the legacy core systems36%43%21%
Procure SaaS services on the side of the legacy core systems and put the legacy in a
run-down mode
41%39%18%2%
Strongly agree
Agree
Neither agree nor disagree
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Don’t know
Move legacy core systems to the cloud infrastructure39%44%17%
Leave core systems as-is but extract data into a data lake to more easily enable
new functionality
41%39%17%
2%
1%
1%

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Federal agencies pursuing all of the above strategy
Many routes to modernization
(continued)
20
Which of the following architectural techniques is your organization currently using or planning
to use to modernize existing legacy systems?
De-consolidate core systems to better align with different objectives32%49%18%
Layer core systems using APIs to better manage dependencies and allow quicker
development cycles
44%39%16%
2%
Use robotic process automation/AI to automate functionality across systems29%42%26%
1%
Simplify core system functionality to keep systems from becoming too complex
and easier to maintain
48%32%20%
2%
2%
1%
Strongly agree
Agree
Neither agree nor disagree
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Don’t know

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However, agility, scalability and security top drivers vs. cost savings
Shift to OpEx fueling cloud migration
21
Please indicate the extent to which you agree or disagree with each of the following statements:
In our organization, agility, scalability and security are stronger drivers for the
adoption of cloud-based IT than cost savings.
38%41%19%
The switch from capital expense to operating for cloud-based IT makes it affordable for us to
migrate systems that had been too expensive to migrate in the past.
31%49%19%
Funds freed up by moving to cloud and other new technologies is or will be financing our
migration from legacy systems.
36%44%19%1%
Strongly agree Agree Neither agree nor disagree Disagree Strongly disagree Don’t know
1%
1%
2%

22. Copyright © 2018 Accenture. All rights reserved.
The Accenture Federal Services Digital Decoupling Survey was fielded to 185 federal IT decision-makers in
October 2017. All were employed by agencies of the U.S. Federal government as either a political appointee,
Senior Executive Service (SES) or career employee (GS-13 to GS-15 or O-1 to 0-10). All reported having legacy
environments within their agency. Within this group, 45% reported that they were extremely knowledgeable
and 54% very knowledgeable“…regarding their organization’s plans for legacy systems and adoption of new
technologies such as cloud computing and new techniques such as agile development and DevOps.”
A similar digital decoupling survey was fielded globally by Accenture in 2017; additional information on this
survey can be found here.
For further analysis of these findings, please read Decouple to Innovate at Accenture.com
Disclaimer: Totals may equal more than 100% due to rounding for individual responses
22

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