How to interpret the technical debt of your company?

What is technical debt?

" Technical debt " is a concept invented in 1992 by Ward Cunningham, an American computer scientist. Directly inspired by financial debt, this term refers to the saturation and obsolete systems that will eventually need to be corrected and that accumulate over time.

Indeed, technical debt generates additional costs if not addressed in a timely manner. Without regular fixes, the costs (in terms of time and money) of maintenance and upgrades increase. It then becomes increasingly difficult to correct defects, bugs, and poor-quality code, which affects traceability, usability, and process automation.

This makes it more difficult to repay technical debt over time, especially when business management, workflow, or customer relationship management modules become outdated and incompatible with modern tools. It is convenient to think that technical debt accumulates over time, as a project develops. However, it can arise from the very beginning, during the planning phase or when choosing an integrated management software package.

This can happen right from the start of the project if an already aging system is chosen, or when a major update is put off until tomorrow.

How to evaluate the technical debt?

To assess your technology debt, you need to conduct a rigorous analysis of potential sources of obsolescence and defects in the systems you use. This assessment requires both a technical and organizational perspective, drawing on audits, indicators, and field feedback, as well as problematic practices in agile methods and SaaS to ensure traceability and resource management.

1. Recognize and anticipate the aging of the tools used

The primary source of this technical debt is often found in the libraries and components chosen to accelerate or improve project development. Even if you opt for a cutting-edge development system, no technology lasts forever. It is therefore essential to anticipate this obsolescence in order to limit the accumulation of debt during future updates or integrations.

For example, a company that has built its infrastructure on an obsolete framework will find that maintaining its applications or ERP software becomes increasingly complex and costly. Updating these tools can also lead to risks of destabilizing the overall code, impacting team productivity, change planning, and customer relationship management.

In innovative small businesses, we see that 40% of the IT budget is absorbed by maintenance of old modules, particularly the ability to invest in next-generation management solutions. (Source: Karmen internal study, 2025)

2. Basing a project on immature or unstable technologies

The pursuit of innovation can lead to the adoption of very recent tools or languages, particularly in cloud computing or digital trading. But using tools that are too new and unstable, whose longevity is not guaranteed, exposes you to costly setbacks. If a technical solution ultimately fails to deliver on its promises, it will be necessary not only to migrate to another alternative, but also to review the entire workflow and configuration of the solutions in place. This applies equally to management software packages and commercial management software used in trading.

Let's take the example of an e-commerce startup that chose a little-used billing framework. A year later, this framework is no longer supported, and the company has to rewrite its management modules, which disrupts the entire supply chain and production management.

3. Identify defects in the source code

The most visible technique often lies in the source code. Code that is too complex, poorly documented, or written in a hurry makes it difficult for a new developer or project manager who was not involved in the initial design to evolve the system. The lack of documentation or a clear workflow can also hinder collaborative management and resource management, especially in remote teams or in SaaS mode.

"Poor-quality source code always ends up being costly, regardless of the expertise of the team in place."

4. Deploy indicators to manage technical debt

To measure technical debt in concrete terms, several indicators can be implemented:

• Number of critical incidents or bugs per month
• Average time to resolve incidents related to the obsolescence of an interface or application
• Percentage of IT budget spent on maintenance vs. innovation
• Frequency of software infrastructure updates
• Number of management tools or software solutions that have become incompatible with new requirements

Certain collaborative tools and modern ERP solutions enable the collection and analysis of these indicators to be automated, allowing for sounder financial and operational management.

5. Regular audit of information systems

Implementing periodic audit techniques makes it possible to anticipate deviations, identify the modules most at risk, and plan corrective actions before the debt becomes critical. The audit can focus on environment configuration, compliance with specifications, interface quality, and consistency of the frameworks used.

Best practices for assessing technical debt

• Map all components, applications, and interfaces in production
• Establish a maturity grid for each software solution used
• Analyze the maintenance load on the main tools
• Ask teams about the irritants they encounter on a daily basis
• Regularly update technical documentation and monitoring dashboards

Ask yourself: is the technical debt you are carrying today the result of conscious choices or decisions imposed on you? Are agile management, traceability, and automation well integrated into your workflows?

How should the debt technique be interpreted?

As we have seen, technological debt is inevitable. Worse still, if no decision is made to reduce it in time, it accumulates and reaches a significant level, almost paralyzing the company's systems.

In fact, technological debt often arises from choosing a technological solution and then relying on it without updating it. The solutions in question are most often software such as ERP, CRM, cash register accounting management systems, or inventory management systems, or legacy software packages.

As a result, aging technology solutions are no longer able to adapt to the company's new needs, causing it to lose agility and efficiency. The company then invests significant resources in upgrading and diverts attention away from more strategic tasks, which slows down digital transformation and the ability to automate critical processes.

"So, just like a bank loan, technological debt incurs additional costs and penalties if it is not repaid on time. The source code written today will irrevocably become the main source of tomorrow's project technology."

Karmen Loan: the financing solution to modernize your information system

We launched Karmen Loan to support companies in modernizing their information systems and managing technical debt. Whether it's to finance application redesign projects, the acquisition of ERP solutions or integrated management software packages, or even the automation of billing processes, Karmen Loan offers flexible loans ranging from €30,000 to €5 million, over 1 to 24 months, to accelerate digital transformation without impacting cash flow.

Our support is aimed at small and medium-sized businesses facing outdated infrastructure, the need to migrate their ERP systems, or the optimization of their management and control tools. Our financing solutions are particularly well suited to trading, production management, and collaborative projects, enabling agile and scalable management.

Find our guide to putting together your financing application step by step, depending on the financial institution you choose.

Conclusion

It is therefore crucial to analyze the sources of technical debt within the company and remedy them as quickly as possible.

More fundamentally, it is important to put in place automated processes that enable the company to prevent and correct bugs and technical defects over time.

When it comes to financing, it is essential for a company to be aware of all possible solutions in order to choose the model best suited to your business and your cash flow cycle.