Legacy IT systems are a ‘ticking time bomb’ that are hindering business improvement and damaging the perception of IT in the boardroom, according to research.

The survey by Atos Origin and conducted independently by the National Computing Centre suggests that 79 per cent of companies claim lack of system agility makes the alignment of IT with business objectives difficult, suppressing corporate ambitions and targets, and 62 per cent believe there is negative return on investment for maintenance of legacy systems.

Over a quarter of companies are also using legacy IT systems to support at least 50 per cent of their critical systems, according to the study.

CBI head of ebusiness Jeremy Beale says the survey confirms its own findings among businesses that a strong alignment between overall business strategy and IT strategy is essential.

‘There is a reluctance by some companies to replace legacy systems because of problems with integration and security issues,’ he said. ‘But failure to address it could leave companies exposed to security problems in future and being outmanoeuvred by competitors.

‘Given increasing demands on companies to know what they are doing, when and with whom, there is also a need for compliance and good identification management, but legacy systems are often unable to fulfil these needs.’

NCC managing director Stefan Foster added: ‘Agility is a significant competitive advantage and inflexible legacy systems can restrict growth. The majority of respondents are re-architecting their enterprise processes to regain agility, but the challenge is how to futureproof new systems to avoid them becoming next year's legacy problem’

Atos Origin systems integration director Tony Virdi says that as systems architecture matures, legacy skills become obsolete.

‘Many corporations invested in legacy systems that are now up to 25 years old and the know-how on these systems is deteriorating,’ he said. ‘People retire, you can’t renew a system because of a lack of knowledge or the funding to tackle legacy systems is not always there. It is a ticking time bomb.’

Although there is no ‘magic wand’, employers are encouraged to adopt flexible and open IT architecture to avoid a repeat of legacy problems in future, says the report.