[marktangotango]

Indeed, I've seen two instances of this. First, early in my career, a company was acquired and had a layoff leaving a skeleton crew in IT and development. People remaining did not have the knowledge or experience to deploy or maintain the applications. That company had a week of down time where business just halted. No purchases were made, nothing previously purchased shipped, no calls to customer service were answered.

The second time was when I was an engineering manager and 3/4 of our team quit for high pay within 6 months. Our application was a line of business app with a few thousand users. Our release dates went from being delayed a few months to over a year. The companies reputation was horrid, and hiring was impossible. My boss, a Director, sent me support people who could spell "java" and expected me train them from zero. I left that disaster soon after.

So yes, the risk is real, and the result can be calamitous.