The biggest issue with Sears is that system documentation is not kept up to date. When changes are made, rarely are they documented. It doesn't matter who comes in to support the legacy Sears apps, they are going to have the same issues because when people left or were laid off, the knowledge walked out the door with them. There are only a handful of folks left that know how to skillfully support the old systems. And.. it's not just Sears, I interviewed with a number of other companies who are in the same boat. That's why many companies are replacing systems, because even though the old system 'works o.k.' for now, they don't have the knowledge to make changes or fix things when a crisis hits. I once read where the average application has a life cycle of perhaps 5 years... Sears has legacy apps developed in the late 80's to early 90's....we don't have the financial resources to rewrite/replace many apps. Also, we did so much customization that many 'new' apps don't have all the features that Sears requires, especially in the appliance delivery area.
@ZQOQRm9-rhc hits the nail on the head.