Mainframes continue to power the world’s most critical systems—from financial transactions to healthcare operations—thanks to their unmatched reliability, security, and processing power. These platforms have advanced significantly to meet modern business demands, processing billions of transactions daily to support essential enterprise operations with speed and precision.
With the integration of cloud technologies, automation, and AI, working with mainframes is becoming more intuitive and efficient. Development teams now benefit from streamlined workflows, improved visibility, and tools that align the mainframe experience with that of other modern platforms—enabling faster innovation and greater agility across the enterprise.
Forward-thinking organizations recognize that providing mainframe teams with advanced tools and practices accelerates innovation, enhances developer satisfaction, and delivers exceptional business value. Adopting advanced development methods allows enterprises to harness the full potential of their mainframe applications and drive meaningful business results.
The Forrester TEI study: $26.2M in benefits from BMC AMI DevX
To evaluate the business impact of improving mainframe development, BMC commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study, drawing insights from six BMC AMI DevX customers across financial services, insurance, and healthcare. The TEI study found that the composite organization transformed their mainframe application development environments using BMC AMI DevX and saw a 217 percent return on investment (ROI), with payback in under six months.
For a composite organization with 300 mainframe developers, the study revealed substantial returns:
- $26.2 million in total benefits over three years
- $18.0 million in net present value (NPV)
- Payback in under six months
These results show how advanced development practices can drive measurable efficiency, agility, and value across the enterprise, making a compelling case for transformation at scale.
Mainframe deployment at scale: from hours to minutes with BMC AMI DevX
The Forrester TEI study showed that organizations using BMC AMI DevX significantly accelerated development workflows, cutting release time by 96 percent. By reducing manual coordination, teams reclaimed time for innovation and higher-value work.
A mainframe DevOps lead in financial services highlighted these dramatic efficiency gains:
“There was a lot of admin work that the developers had to do, and we effectively freed up their time so that they could focus on the real value-adding [work] of developing code. … We have as fast a release schedule as other platforms. … We actually deploy our mainframe changes even quicker than our program increment cycles.”
Key outcomes include:
- Increased deployment frequency by 50% without compromising quality
- Reduced mean time to restore service by 98%
- Decreased change failure rate by 33%
- Minimized application downtime by 99%
Improving mainframe visibility and code analysis with BMC AMI DevX
These benefits aren’t just theoretical. They’re already transforming how teams work. Organizations using BMC AMI DevX reported significant improvements in visibility, efficiency, and scale across their mainframe environments.
A lead product engineer in financial services shared a striking example of how much faster code analysis has become:
“I’ll give you an example: [take] something like the program analysis function. One developer said it [used to] take days to map out a program and to follow through the processes in a program. But now, [with the BMC AMI DevX tools] she does it in minutes…”
These kinds of gains are especially valuable in mainframe environments, where applications often represent decades of business logic and institutional knowledge. BMC AMI DevX tools help teams uncover hidden structures and relationships through advanced visualizations and analytics, making it easier to understand, maintain, and evolve complex codebases.
Reported outcomes include:
- Increased active coding time by 33% by reducing admin overhead and sharpening developer focus
- Delivered productivity gains equivalent to adding 25 full-time team members
- Accelerated code analysis—from days to just minutes
Building agile, multi-generational mainframe teams
Mainframe development is evolving—not only how code is written and deployed, but also how teams are structured and supported.
According to Forrester’s TEI study, organizations using BMC AMI DevX are building dynamic, multi-generational teams where both new and experienced developers thrive. By aligning with current software practices, they’re making the platform more accessible, collaborative, and attractive to today’s talent.
Key workforce outcomes include:
- Expanded junior developer headcount by 240%
- Increased overall mainframe workforce by 6%
- Accelerated onboarding by 50%—cutting ramp-up time from 9 to 4.5 months
A mainframe systems engineer in financial services shared how intuitive tools helped attract and engage new talent:
“We switched about one to two years ago. … We never forced someone to use [Workbench], [but] all the youngest people jumped in immediately. … Twenty to 25 percent of the developers switched by themselves.”
With BMC AMI DevX, the composite organization realized $7.9 million in workforce development benefits—driven by intuitive interfaces and streamlined workflows that energize teams and reduce barriers to productivity.
Driving innovation and agility through next-generation mainframe development
Mainframe development is no longer just about maintenance. It’s driving innovation and agility. With BMC AMI DevX, organizations gain the speed, visibility, and flexibility to adapt and improve continuously. Forrester’s TEI study confirms that advanced tooling accelerates development, increases transparency, and fosters innovation.
A financial services platform lead emphasized the value of real-time insight:
“These capabilities have created visibility into what changes are going into the system under the emergency banner. It’s not just the faster timelines [when we’re] deploying on a regular basis. If it’s an emergency change, [we have] visibility.”
BMC AMI DevX supports full-lifecycle visibility with impact analysis, automated testing, streamlined code reviews, and actionable metrics, helping teams innovate faster and more precisely.
A platform lead for mainframe DevOps noted the cultural shift sparked by advanced tooling:
“We have some early adopters who are very interested in the new features and functionalities of the BMC toolsets. [The tools] are creating a good spark of interest. I think they’re [changing developer conversations] from ‘This application is horribly built,’ to ‘Hey, this is cool. I can use a lot of new tools and capabilities.’”
A financial services development lead praised the platform’s adaptability and alignment with evolving business needs:
“In terms of going where I wanted to go and being flexible enough to meet my needs, [BMC has been] phenomenal. Not even a question—easy decision. [BMC AMI DevX] has done everything we wanted it to do.”
Transforming the mainframe into an advanced engine for innovation and growth
The Forrester TEI study shows that advanced tools like BMC AMI DevX helped organizations maximize mainframe value by boosting efficiency, enabling smarter development, and attracting top talent through intuitive, automated, and integrated workflows.
This transformation is not just technical. It’s cultural. A mainframe systems engineer at a financial services organization observed that “With these tools, the mainframe is a platform just like any other.”
By combining intuitive tooling with a developer-centric culture—alongside automation, AI, and cloud-native practices—organizations are not only accelerating technical performance but also reshaping how teams collaborate, innovate, and view the mainframe as a simplified, modern platform for growth.
For organizations working to elevate developer productivity, accelerate time to value, and strengthen mainframe talent strategies, BMC AMI DevX delivers a proven solution aligned with enterprise transformation goals.
Download the full Forrester TEI study to explore what this could mean for your organization.
