I cannot speak for all the COBOL implementations, but what I've seen is that a company will purchase and implement a new COTS ("Commercial Off The Shelf") back-office application such as ERP - Financials, HR, CRM, EPM, etc. Something that's boring to techies but critical bread and butter for a company.
That application may well have some COBOL in it. It's sold as new, but such big applications will have bits that were written 3 months ago and bits that were written 20 years ago.
Now the company has a shiny new application that has some COBOL.
ERPs are living applications. Legislation changes, markets change, company's needs change, so ERPs are both customized and updated and expanded. So you need some COBOL expertise depending how active you want to be about it.
(note: a typical techie, including myself a decade ago, will typically see insanity in this and think something like "Payroll???? How hard can THAT be??". Like being a parent or living through a civil war, nobody can truly explain this to another human being that hasn't been through it :-)
That application may well have some COBOL in it. It's sold as new, but such big applications will have bits that were written 3 months ago and bits that were written 20 years ago.
Now the company has a shiny new application that has some COBOL.
ERPs are living applications. Legislation changes, markets change, company's needs change, so ERPs are both customized and updated and expanded. So you need some COBOL expertise depending how active you want to be about it.
(note: a typical techie, including myself a decade ago, will typically see insanity in this and think something like "Payroll???? How hard can THAT be??". Like being a parent or living through a civil war, nobody can truly explain this to another human being that hasn't been through it :-)