Survey: large enterprises spend 28% of software budgets on changes they did not choose

A survey of more than 2,000 CIOs and senior IT decision-makers in the United States and Britain, published October 20, 2026 by software maintenance provider Origina in a report with Thinkers50, found that large organizations spend an average of 28% of their software budgets on vendor-driven upgrades, migrations, and licensing changes they would not have actively chosen. The most recent vendor-driven change cost the surveyed organizations an average of $12.87 million.

The findings carry several notable data points. Ninety-five percent of respondents said their organization had paid for a vendor-driven upgrade it expected to worsen performance, reliability, or business value, and 53% said this had happened more than once. Eighty-four percent said senior engineers regularly spend time on vendor-driven changes instead of other work. Ninety-one percent said they had retired hardware that still functioned to meet a vendor's support deadline, giving up an estimated 1.65 years of remaining useful life on average. Eighty percent said leaving a major software vendor would significantly disrupt their business — a figure Origina says explains why organizations rarely refuse unwanted changes. Ninety percent said vendor-driven costs had contributed at least moderately to delaying, pausing, or canceling an AI or data project. Origina, which sells independent software maintenance services, has a commercial interest in these findings.

The research is a useful prompt for IT and finance leaders to examine the share of their software budget going toward mandatory vendor changes versus self-directed work. It is a good time to audit upcoming renewal dates, identify products approaching end of support, and assess whether independent maintenance or extended support programs could reduce cost exposure for any business-critical systems.