Cut your losses !

I have been working with customers to help them modernize their IT systems for few years now. I have seen that customers are more receptive, if we prescribe to build over the existing systems rather than rebuilding from scratch. Though it is comforting to see optimal reuse of existing, practically, sometimes it makes better sense to rewrite than reuse, especially if the current systems are architected in a fashion that will hinder achieving the desired target state for the business. Most often, it is a psychological block that makes it difficult to move away from something that we have cared for a long time. It is like an affinity of share pundit to his or her loosing stock. They buy every time stocks go below and average out its price, but they end up losing everything at the end. It sometimes makes sense to cut your losses and invest somewhere else that is likely to give you most returns.