{"id":226170,"date":"2026-03-18T14:31:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T18:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/18\/consolidation-in-a-complex-and-aging-enterprise-it-environment\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T18:30:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T22:30:16","slug":"consolidation-in-a-complex-and-aging-enterprise-it-environment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/18\/consolidation-in-a-complex-and-aging-enterprise-it-environment\/","title":{"rendered":"Consolidation in a complex and aging enterprise IT environment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nextgov.com\/ideas\/2026\/03\/consolidation-complex-and-aging-enterprise-it-environment\/412208\/\">Consolidation in a complex and aging enterprise IT environment<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nextgov.com\/ideas\/2026\/03\/consolidation-complex-and-aging-enterprise-it-environment\/412208\/\">https:\/\/www.nextgov.com\/ideas\/2026\/03\/consolidation-complex-and-aging-enterprise-it-environment\/412208\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-03-18 14:31:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.nextgov.com\">www.nextgov.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Federal agencies are under mounting pressure to do more with less \u2014\u00a0and nowhere is that tension more acute than in their\u00a0IT environments. Decades of incremental investment have produced sprawling, fragmented portfolios that are expensive to maintain, difficult to secure\u00a0and not always aligned with mission priorities. At the same time, agencies are navigating conflicting priorities as they strive to maintain aging legacy infrastructure, while simultaneously driving modernization. Managing both is not just complex, it is incredibly demanding.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I shared my views on IT consolidation on this platform after capping a 30+ year career in government IT (see Hard lessons: A CIO\u2019s playbook for consolidation \u2014\u00a0Nextgov\/FCW).<\/p>\n<p>I find I have more to share. IT consolidation, done smartly, offers a path forward. It also requires more than technological decisions. It demands commitment, an IT vision and strategy, strong leadership, disciplined planning, dedicated change management\u00a0and a clear-eyed view of real and potential barriers and risks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Key agency challenges<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Before embarking on IT consolidation, agencies should honestly and openly confront the conditions that can make the journey difficult. The most common challenges:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Workforce restructuring and skill gaps;<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Budget constraints;<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Legacy systems that are too hard to kill;<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Siloed organizations across the enterprise;<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Data fragmentation;<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Customer records are fragmented across systems with no unified view;<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Poor oversight of IT, generally (e.g., shadow IT operations, decentralized procurements, poor FITARA compliance);<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Conflicting mission priorities, portfolio bloat, inefficiencies and security vulnerabilities.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The case for consolidation<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Done well, IT consolidation delivers meaningful, lasting returns across multiple dimensions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Savings and Efficiency gains. They achieve economies of scale, reduce costly duplication of systems and workforce\u00a0and improve vendor negotiations.<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Operational Improvements. Consolidation simplifies&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nextgov.com\/ideas\/2026\/03\/consolidation-complex-and-aging-enterprise-it-environment\/412208\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Consolidation in a complex and aging enterprise IT environment https:\/\/www.nextgov.com\/ideas\/2026\/03\/consolidation-complex-and-aging-enterprise-it-environment\/412208\/ Publish Date: 2026-03-18 14:31:00 Source&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":226171,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.nextgov.com\/media\/img\/cd\/2026\/03\/18\/GettyImages_2238553769\/open-graph.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-226170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226170"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226170"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":226172,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226170\/revisions\/226172"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}