We’ve been hearing about digital transformation for over a decade now, the idea that you have to modernize your systems for a more digitally centric world. What holds back digital transformation? Well, lots of things, from office politics to budget prioritization to inertia, but one big factor preventing companies from taking advantage of the latest technology could be the age of their tech stack.

Companies steeped in another concept known as technical debt — a growing cost for not fixing structural problems in tech systems — could be limiting their ability to take advantage of newer technologies. And at some point, the cost of that debt could become so high, companies could be left in the dust altogether.

In the last 15 years, we’ve seen a number of meaningful technological shifts from mobile to cloud to containerization. If these waves passed you by, and you’re stuck on ancient systems, be prepared for your company’s future digital transformation journey to potentially be long and painful.

We spoke to David Linthicum, chief cloud strategy officer at Deloitte and author of the book “An Insider’s Guide to Cloud Computing,” about the issue of overcoming technical debt. Linthicum has been helping companies move to the cloud for years now, and he has a dire message for firms stuck on older systems.

Move faster, will ya

One thing we know about large enterprises is they typically move methodically. They have systems in place, like legal, compliance, security and HR, all built to say no in order to protect the company from changing too quickly. While nobody is suggesting that large companies suddenly start “moving fast and breaking things,” it may be time to pick up the pace or risk getting left behind.