# Upgrades, Migrations and Licensing Changes Take 28% of Large Firms’ Software Budgets

By Simon Yoon

Canonical URL: https://www.tokenpost.com/news/technology/37805
Published: 2026-10-22T11:54:44.000Z
Updated: 2026-10-22T11:54:44.000Z
Section: Technology

> The survey covered 2,018 U.S. and U.K. IT leaders at companies with at least 10,000 employees and $1 billion in annual revenue. Separately, 76% said they had little negotiating leverage with major vendors.

Large-company IT leaders put upgrades, migrations and licensing changes they would not have chosen at an average 28% of software budgets, leaving less funding for other priorities.

The findings draw on responses from 2,018 CIOs and senior IT decision-makers at companies in the United States and United Kingdom. Each company had at least 10,000 employees and annual revenue of $1 billion or more. The survey included 1,011 U.S. respondents, with the remainder based in the U.K.

95% said they had paid for at least one vendor-driven upgrade, migration or licensing change in the past three years despite expecting it to harm performance, reliability or business value. 53% said this had happened more than once.

In a separate finding, 76% said their organization had very little negotiating leverage with major software vendors. 80% said moving away from a major vendor would cause significant disruption. Both figures include respondents who strongly or somewhat agreed with the statements.

Respondents most often named innovation as an area affected by reduced funding, at 36%. Human resources followed at 32%, while security and customer-facing investment each came in at 31%.

Liberty Mutual CIO James McGlennon said an upgrade cycle can occupy top technical workers for “the better part of a year.” He described it as a recurring drain on capacity, leaving employees less time for initiatives that differentiate a business.

Origina CEO and founder Tomás O’Leary said accepting an unwanted upgrade may be rational when refusing it risks losing support for systems in use, calling it “often a rational response.” He said the cost also reaches engineering time and innovation that does not get funded.

Every surveyed company used at least one of IBM, HCL, VMware/Broadcom or SAP at meaningful scale, although the findings do not identify a specific vendor as forcing the changes. Marshall Van Alstyne, a report co-author and Boston University information sciences professor, urged CIOs to “negotiate the exit before the entry.” Early vendor talks could set migration assistance costs and caps on renewal and expansion prices.

91% said they would support laws giving enterprise software customers protections similar to those available to long-term renters. Just 1% opposed the idea, while the rest were neutral.