Homepage Micro Focus newsroom

CIOs Outsource Mainframe Application Development and Testing to Overcome Compliance Challenges

Announcement posted by Micro Focus 30 Jun 2014

When new legislation or industry regulation requires compliance changes to be made to an organisation’s mainframe applications, an average of one-third of CIOs across Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) today choose to outsource application development and testing. In comparison to other markets, the US leads the charge, outsourcing an average of 62% of testing and development projects, while the UK sits at 40%. This is according to an independent global research study undertaken by Vanson Bourne and commissioned by Micro Focus (LSE: MCRO.L), which polled 590 CIOs and IT directors across the globe, with 50 surveyed across the ANZ region. 
 
The Documentation Problem
 
Explaining the compliance challenge, half of IT leaders across ANZ say that it is highly likely or certain that the original knowledge of their mainframe applications and supporting data structure is no longer in the organisation.  Similarly, nearly three quarters (74%) confirm that their organisation’s documentation is incomplete.  This lack of clear or up-to-date records poses a problem in identifying and making compliance changes to the right applications. In fact, almost a quarter (23%) of CIOs confirm they lack the capability to do application compliance change work in-house.
 
Whether they outsource or not, almost all of respondents (96%) believe that the ability to demonstrate the resilience of their current mainframe environment is important, with 88% believing this ability will only increase in the future. 
 
The Legal Benefit of Outsourcing
 
When outsourcing mainframe application development and testing to comply with new legislation, 49% of ANZ CIOs contractually pass the legal responsibility for data protection and privacy requirements to their outsourcing partner. A further 18% expressed a desire to do so. 
 
Commenting on the research results, Derek Britton, Director of Product Marketing at Micro Focus said: “On-going legislative changes have resulted in an array of new compliance measures such as ISO27002, Basel III, FACTA and SEPA.  In order to support compliance requirements, organisations need to change and update their core business applications. The complexities of missing code documentation, constrained resource pools and data privacy risks mean companies are frequently turning to the outsource market for this work.
 
“Contemporary technology can establish repeatable, effective steps for updating core applications, driving efficiencies in the compliance projects at every key stage,” continued Britton.  “In doing so, organisations are able to more effectively balance lights-on and innovation efforts – either directly or via their outsourcing partner - enabling development staff to execute changes more efficiently, while managing the impact of the changes they make.”
 
###
 
Notes to Editors
The independent research survey was undertaken by Vanson Bourne in November 2013.  It covered 590 IT decision makers in nine countries including UK (100), France (100), Germany (100), USA (100), Brazil (100), Australia (35), New Zealand (15), Hong Kong (15) and Singapore (25). The respondents were from mainframe organisations with 501+ employees, covering multiple industry sectors.
 
About Micro Focus
 
Micro Focus, a member of the FTSE 250, provides innovative software that allows companies to dramatically improve the business value of their enterprise applications. Micro Focus Enterprise Application Modernisation, Testing and Management software enables customers’ business applications to respond rapidly to market changes and embrace modern architectures with reduced cost and risk. For additional information please visit www.microfocus.com
 
Follow Micro Focus on twitter | linkedin | community