Polling 100 senior IT decision-makers in the UK, the study aimed to evaluate the percentage of businesses that choose not to migrate data and rationalise operating platforms because of the risk, cost, time and resource needed for such projects. The financial services respondents emerged as the most reticent when faced with the need for data migration.

Unsurprisingly, a massive 72% of IT decision makers in financial organisations ticked the box, largely because of the role that data plays in this space. Financial organisations in fact revolve around their data; there are no physical products they manufacture or distribute - data is their business and they cannot take any risks with it. When polling respondents from sectors such as retail, distribution and transport - industries that tend to gather extremely large amounts of data - a lower, but still significant 56% of respondents claimed that in the past they have been discouraged from carrying out data migration projects. Also interestingly, the larger the business, the more they seem to shy away from data migration; 56% of companies with fewer than 3,000 employees admitted to the above factors not to make such projects worth their while, while 64% of respondents from organisations with a staff of more than 3,000 ticked the box.

Organisations today are under pressure to keep budgets down while increasing productivity, hence the prospect of embarking on a data migration or platform rationalisation project that is likely to overrun both in terms of time and money is not appealing, especially since IT departments are in many cases already stretched and when a large part of the migration risk is usually due to lack of suitably skilled and experienced resources. Outsourcing is often the answer. Kognitio's data migration team helps its customers from the planning to the final stages, including the development of the various processes and the transfer of skills.

"Typically we carry out data migration projects in half the time, at half the cost and in line with the delivery schedule when compared to the results seen from in-house migration projects. In the data migration business there is nothing truer than the adage of 'you do not know what you do not know'," said Roger Llewellyn, CEO at Kognitio. "So we always undertake a full analysis of the business data which is critical to the success of the project; this is the foundation for the subsequent steps in our unique methodology. We identify any problems at the start and agree what action needs to be taken with the customer. This is a far cheaper solution than discovering the problem at the end of the migration."

To date, Kognitio is the largest UK independent provider of data migration and platform rationalisation solutions and continues to help companies such as Genworth Financial, Wesleyan Assurance and Allianz Cornhill Schemes take the risk and cost out of their migration projects.

"When it came to migrating our customer policies, both the volume and complexity of the policies were critical factors for the business to think about. Each data element needed to be accurately moved across to ensure that the policies were correct and valid once migrated," said Tim Tresadern, IT manager at Allianz Cornhill Schemes. "We chose to work with Kognitio because of its proven migration expertise in the insurance sector. Its team was instrumental in providing us with the tools, knowledge and peace of mind that allowed us to carry out the entire process smoothly, quickly and successfully. Kognitio ultimately de-risked the data migration element of the project."

"Financial organisations are a law onto themselves when it comes to data migration projects; compared to most other industries they have different needs and face different challenges," continued Llewellyn. "Kognitio has been working with such organisations for many years; we understand their demands and their technology environments and allow them to focus on improving their businesses by providing the supporting technology."