Trapped in your own software: how municipalities can take back control

The phone rings early on a Monday morning. Prices are going up by 150 percent.
“You either sign the new contract or we stop providing the service,” the vendor says.
This organization has relied on this integration supplier for years, but this crosses a line.

More and more, I see organizations, including municipalities, getting stuck in the IT decisions they made years ago. Prices rise, service quality drops, and the sense of control slips away. So where’s the exit?

You might not realize it yet, but you're stuck

Many municipalities know the problem all too well. They use software that’s essential to their operations, but switching to a different supplier is anything but easy. Even when service is lacking and costs keep climbing, they feel they have no real alternative.

Vendor lock-in is baked into how traditional systems are built: data lives inside applications. Want to switch vendors? Then you're not just replacing software, you're taking on a full-scale data migration, often complex and expensive.

For many of the municipalities I advise, this feels like a brick wall. They stay in costly contracts because the alternative, a major migration, seems even more daunting.

A changing world makes the urgency impossible to ignore

In recent years, another layer has been added to the problem. Many public organizations have realized just how dependent they’ve become on large American software companies for critical systems at a time when global tensions are rising.

The question I hear more and more: “Are we actually in control of our own data anymore?”

This isn’t just about cost. It’s about digital sovereignty: being able to decide where your data lives and who can access it.

Common Ground: the blueprint already exists

The Association of Dutch Municipalities (VNG) recognizes the issue and is tackling it with Common Ground, built on five core principles:

1. Decouple data from applications - Data becomes central and accessible via APIs.
2. Use open standards and open source - Collaboration built on open technology.
3. Build together - No need for every municipality to solve the same problem alone.
4. Put the user first - IT shaped around the needs of citizens and civil servants.
5. Modular and replaceable - Components you can swap out as needed.

What I love about Common Ground is the shift in mindset: municipalities helping each other instead of solving the same problems independently. Knowledge is shared, solutions are reused.

It aligns perfectly with the open-source model: software is free, but support and services are paid. Vendors compete on service quality, not on how tightly they can lock in their customers.

And the result is simple: better service, because vendors actually have to earn their place.

Why now is the moment to act

Over the coming years, municipalities will be expected to do more with shrinking budgets. Managing IT costs smartly is becoming essential. Investing in open standards and open-source technology pays off in the long run.

Five to ten years from now, the IT landscape will look completely different. Organizations that start modernizing now will have the flexibility to move quickly, adapt faster, and choose the best provider for each task, without the fear of vendor lock-in.

They’ll own their data. They’ll decide where it lives. They’ll choose the partners they actually want to work with.

And the best part: you don’t have to flip the entire IT landscape overnight. With the right integration strategy, you can modernize step by step.

Integration makes the change manageable

This is where good data and application integration becomes invaluable. Instead of a risky, big-bang migration, you transition gradually.

You update part of your IT landscape while the rest keeps running as usual. Integration ensures your old systems can still communicate with the new ones.

At WeAreFrank!, we’ve developed multiple solutions to support this approach.

Take Zaakbrug. It lets municipalities move to Open Zaak (a new open-source case management system) while keeping their existing applications in place. Zaakbrug handles the translation between the old STUF standard and the new ZGW standard used by Open Zaak.

The beauty is that nothing changes for employees. They continue working in the tools they know, while the data flows correctly behind the scenes.

The same idea applies to Haal Centraal. With the Haal Centraal Connector, municipalities can pull data directly from the source while their existing systems continue functioning as if they still rely on a DDS. The connector simply emulates a DDS.

In other words: modernization becomes something you can do in stages.

Practical steps toward digital freedom

For organizations looking to break out of vendor lock-in, here are concrete steps:

1. Identify your dependencies: Where are you locked in? Which systems are hardest to replace?
2. Start with integration: Build an integration layer that decouples your systems. Future changes instantly become easier.
3. Adopt open standards: New systems should be based on open technology to keep switching costs low.
4. Modernize in phases: Replace systems step by step instead of doing it all at once.

Ready to move toward digital independence?

WeAreFrank! supports organizations by providing the data and application integration needed to transition to open systems. Whether it’s Zaakbrug for Common Ground, integrations with Haal Centraal, or migrations from existing systems, the open-source Frank!Framework offers the flexibility to move at your own pace and stay in control.