New research from Rocket Software, published today, finds automotive IT leaders are making modernisation a priority but many are still struggling to move plans into production. Integrating mission-critical systems with modern platforms ranks as the top modernisation priority across the 52 automotive IT leaders surveyed, yet only 43% of those prioritising integration say the work is actively deployed or fully implemented.
Only 35% of respondents have a centralised, coordinated modernisation programme, despite efforts spanning production, supply chain, inventory, data, applications and infrastructure. Half of respondents favour a hybrid architecture that combines core systems with cloud-native extensions, reflecting a pragmatic approach to adding new capabilities while preserving critical systems.
Operational confidence is being tested. While 70% are at least moderately confident they can modernise without affecting production continuity, more than a third have already experienced unplanned downtime or instability, rollbacks, higher short-term costs or extended parallel runs. Data inconsistencies rank as the leading operational risk posed by mission-critical systems, and also contribute to modernisation friction, concerns around AI-assisted modernisation and challenges with real-time visibility.
Better real-time visibility and decision-making ranks as the top desired outcome from modernisation, yet supply chain visibility ranks lowest among the areas where respondents expect significant or transformational improvement over the next three years. Most respondents are using or evaluating AI for modernisation tasks including test generation, process discovery, code conversion and documentation, but adoption is raising questions about preserving embedded business logic, validating AI-generated outputs and meeting security and compliance requirements.
The study was conducted by third-party research firm UserEvidence on behalf of Rocket Software, surveying 52 automotive IT leaders, 77% of whom hold C-suite, board-level or senior leadership roles.
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