Natuvion Transformation Study 2026: Two-thirds of companies leave legacy data behind during IT transformations

Legacy data and systems drive up costs

The international Transformation Study 2026 highlights the extent of legacy data across enterprise IT environments: 38.4% of replaced systems are more than ten years old, and nearly 10% are over 16 years old. These systems contain large volumes of historical data that must remain accessible and available for analysis to meet commercial, tax, and regulatory requirements. However, every legacy application that remains in operation generates ongoing infrastructure, maintenance, and licensing costs. Systems that are no longer supported also pose security risks. Companies that continue to store historical data as primary data in legacy applications running in the cloud often pay premium prices. Cloud storage, database operations, and licenses for production systems are priced for active business use, not for retaining inactive data.

The study also highlights the financial pressure associated with data transformation projects: More than 80% of companies exceed their transformation budgets, while 79.5% fall behind schedule. At the same time, simplifying IT landscapes offers significant opportunities to reduce costs. According to the study, 48.1% of companies achieved savings in IT infrastructure, 35.6% through system landscape harmonization, and 35% by reducing data volumes. 

Archiving with DCS Retire: Lower costs, full data visibility and compliance

DCS Retire, the system decommissioning module of the Natuvion Data Conversion Suite (DCS), eliminates the need to keep legacy applications running. The AI-powered solution securely extracts and archives complete, structured data from any database-based source system while preserving the original data model. Data is stored cost-effectively in the Natuvion Cloud, allowing companies to avoid much of the expense associated with maintaining legacy systems or storing historical data as primary data in the cloud.

The example of Swiss energy provider schweizstrom demonstrates how this works in practice. Using DCS Retire, the company securely archived approximately 100,000 historical customer records in compliance with GDPR and audit requirements. It then shut down its former production system and terminated its contract with the previous platform provider.

The German-based cable solutions provider Radio Frequency Systems also successfully decommissioned its legacy SAP ERP system using DCS Retire.

Compliance built in: on-demand reporting and secure access with DCS Retire 

Regulatory compliance is becoming an increasingly significant challenge for IT transformation projects. According to the Natuvion Transformation Study 2026, meeting regulatory requirements was the second most frequently cited unexpected challenge, reported by 25.9% of respondents. This represents a sharp increase from eighth place in the previous year's study. Decommissioning legacy systems involves several compliance obligations, including tamper-proof data retention, adherence to statutory retention and deletion periods, restricted access to sensitive information, and proper documentation.

DCS Retire automates these requirements. The solution provides audit-proof archiving, enforces statutory retention periods, assigns privacy-compliant deletion schedules, and controls access through granular user permissions. Authorized employees and auditors can access archived data through database queries or a read-only web interface, without needing the original application. AI-powered analytics and customized reports deliver results in minutes, replacing reporting processes that previously depended on the legacy system. As a result, companies can respond to tax and financial audits, GDPR data access requests, and internal information requests even after their legacy applications have been decommissioned.