Are You Falling Behind? How to Benchmark Your IT Strategy Against Modernization Experts 

The AI era is here, and the pressure to modernize is real. But modernization isn’t simple when your IT landscape spans mainframes, cloud-first applications, and siloed data sources. This common reality leaves data stored in different formats, tagged with inconsistent metadata, moving at varied latencies, and often out of sync. The result is an overwhelming environment that makes it difficult to see your current posture, prioritize investments, or build momentum.

That’s why the Modernization Index exists. Backed by our research in conjunction with IDC, it provides a structured benchmark across six foundational pillars of modernization. The result is clarity: a true picture of your organization’s strengths and opportunities, and a roadmap to move forward with confidence from exactly where you are today.

The Six Pillars Behind the Modernization Index

In gathering insights from more than 800 global IT leaders, six common themes emerged. These pillars reflect the areas where enterprises consistently prioritize, face challenges, and where modernization delivers the greatest impact. The Modernization Index measures maturity across each of the six, creating a snapshot of your organization’s posture:

1. IT Infrastructure: Optimizes cost and performance across interoperable hybrid environments
2. Application Development: Automates DevOps using modern languages, cloud-native containers, and AI
3. Data Management: Ensures consistent data quality, security, and accessibility across all workloads and systems
4. Cybersecurity: Ensures data assets and business processes are hardened and protected from unauthorized access or malware
5. IT People, Processes, and Skills: Ensures effective IT performance while maximizing staff retention and skills
6. AI Readiness: Supports the deployment and operation of mission-critical AI applications and infrastructure

Individually, each pillar highlights a critical area of modernization. Together, they create a holistic maturity profile: a clear snapshot of where you stand today, how your posture aligns with the market, and where to focus next. Clarity that can be established in minutes with the Modernization Index assessment.

What the Data Shows: Trends in Enterprise Modernization

A recent Rocket Software white paper with IDC set out to measure how modernization maturity impacts an enterprise’s ability to reach business objectives. The research not only identified the six pillars, but also revealed how enterprises are prioritizing them today and what effect that prioritization has on overall effectiveness.

We found that IT budgets currently flex to earmark an average of 25-30% for modernization. As such, the issue of who comes out on top is less about cost and more about execution. The data tells a consistent story: modernization is at the top of the C-suite agenda. But while most enterprises are investing, only those with advanced modernization postures are unlocking outsized gains.

• Cybersecurity and compliance are key hurdles: The IT modernization journey has no shortage of hurdles, and AI adds to the complexity. Cybersecurity concerns around exposing confidential or private data cause many to slow their modernization plans.
• Efficiency as a driver: 32% rank operational efficiency as the top priority, but older, inflexible, yet mission-critical systems remain a barrier.  
• AI readiness amid speed pressures: Nearly half (49%) are preparing their infrastructure for rapid AI adoption, but fragmented data challenges consistently delay progress.
• Impact of maturity: Enterprises with more advanced modernization postures see 28%+ productivity gains.

So, while budgets look similar across enterprises, there are clear distinctions between those who have made the most impactful gains, and those still determining their next move. The Modernization Index helps leaders understand their current opportunities, grounded in real-world data and examples, and giving a clear picture for their best path forward today.

What Enterprises are Thriving and Why?

The research revealed that not all organizations approach modernization the same way, and the realized business outcomes reflect those differences. When you take the Modernization Index assessment, it will place your organization into one of four maturity tiers, each representing your level of progress across the six foundational pillars.

Tier 1: IT Modernization Expert

The top 10% on our list are sorted into the Expert tier. These enterprises set the standard, delivering the highest levels of year-over-year business improvements, often nearly double what less mature peers report.

Expert success largely comes down to mindset. Around 50% approach modernization as a disciplined, integrated program tied directly to business outcomes across the organization, rather than a series of disconnected projects.  

Tier 2: IT Modernization Leader

Leaders represent 30% of all organizations, and show substantial progress with healthy annual improvements to show for it. However, their efforts often lack full coordination. Some pillars are highly advanced, while others lag behind, creating bottlenecks that limit overall impact.

Tier 3: IT Modernization Pioneer

Pioneers represent another 30%. These organizations are in motion, but still early in their journey. They've begun to invest in modernization programs, but uneven prioritization and funding gaps slow execution. Modernization is often lower on the strategic agenda, leaving results inconsistent and business outcomes modest compared to Leaders and Experts.

Tier 4: IT Modernization Explorer

Explorers are at the starting line. Their efforts are largely tactical, siloed, and project based, with limited metrics or KPIs to guide investments or the broader strategy. Without a broader framework, documenting ROI and scaling impact remain persistent challenges.

These tiers aren’t static. Every enterprise will pass through different stages as they modernize. The Modernization Index provides a grounded, neutral snapshot of where you stand today, and more importantly, a launch point with actionable insights to move your strategy to the next level.

Where Does Your Organization Stand?

The current gap between Experts and everyone else is widening. Experts aren’t simply investing more – they’re investing smarter. They’re coordinating efforts across every pillar to compound gains year after year. That advantage puts them further out of reach for organizations still treating modernization as an isolated, tactical project.

The good news: the Modernization Index is designed to show you exactly where you sit today and where to focus next. Whether you’re an Explorer, Pioneer, Leader, or Expert, the assessment is designed to meet you where you are today and offer actionable steps to take you to the next level in your journey.

Click here to take the Modernization Index assessment (8 minutes).