The software tax: paying for change you did not choose

Large enterprises spend 28% of their software budgets on upgrades, migrations and licence changes they would not have chosen, according to new research from Origina. The cost is not only money. It is senior engineering time, delayed AI programmes and a growing dependence on vendors who set the timetable.

What the research found

Origina commissioned Censuswide to survey 2,018 CIOs and senior IT leaders at companies with revenue of $1bn or more, in the US and the UK, in May 2026. All of them run IBM, HCL, VMware or SAP at scale.

The pattern is consistent. 95% paid for a vendor-driven upgrade in the past three years that they believed would reduce performance, reliability or business value. 78% say the vendor, not their own organisation, sets the timing and terms of change, and 76% say they have little real leverage in negotiations. 80% say moving away from a major vendor would cause significant disruption. And when an AI or data programme was last slowed, paused or cancelled, 90% said vendor-driven costs played a part.

As James McGlennon, former CIO of Liberty Mutual and an Origina board member, told TechRadar: “That’s not a one-off cost, it’s a recurring drag on capacity.”

Why organisations stay locked in

Vendor leverage rests on uncertainty. Over years, a core platform collects customisations, integrations and business rules that few people fully understand. Nobody can say with confidence what would break if it changed, what it would cost to leave, or which parts are still used. Faced with that uncertainty, accepting the vendor’s upgrade looks like the safe choice, even when it is an expensive one.

How Paradym Next changes the position

You can see what you actually run. Next reads the code, configuration and integrations around each platform, and records what your people know about it. You get a reviewed map of what depends on what, which customisations matter and which business rules sit inside. That is the evidence a renewal or upgrade decision needs.

Leaving stops looking impossible. With the system understood, it can be rebuilt one part at a time, with the old system running until the new one produces the same results. Across four modernisation projects, this approach took around 70% less time and cost than the original estimates (preliminary results). When exit is a costed, staged option, the vendor no longer sets all the terms.

Senior engineers get their time back. Next agents do the reading, the impact analysis, the drafting of change plans and the comparison testing. Your engineers review and approve rather than doing every step by hand. Upgrades that must happen take less of their time, and more of it goes on work the business chose.

AI programmes do not create a new dependency. Next is a control plane for AI agents under your rules. You choose the models and switch providers with a configuration change, run it in your own cloud or on premise, and keep the code and documentation it produces. The fix for one kind of lock-in should not be another.

What this does not do

Next does not replace vendor support or remove contractual obligations, and some platforms are worth keeping. The aim is to make that a decision you take on your own timetable, with the facts in front of you, rather than one the vendor takes for you.

Where to start

Pick the platform whose next forced upgrade worries you most. Start with a free initial assessment of that application, so you know what it does, what depends on it and what leaving would involve, before the vendor’s deadline arrives.

Sources: Craig Hale, “Companies are spending nearly a third of IT budgets on software upgrades”, TechRadar Pro, 20 October 2026. Origina, “Software tax research”, survey by Censuswide of 2,018 respondents, fieldwork 11–19 May 2026. Paradym Next results: early evidence from four projects.