The technologies that got your business to its current position are often not what you need to keep moving forward.
By relying on dated apps and processes, you’ll spend more time maintaining old systems than you will on innovation. The cost and time would be better directed toward strengthening security, eliminating the data silos older systems often create, and producing modern app experiences for employees and customers.
As technology advances, your business’s ability to keep up with newer and more agile competitors will be dependent on the quality of your systems. That’s where legacy modernization comes in.
Legacy modernization is the process of updating or replacing your older systems with newer technology to enhance capabilities and better meet current and future business needs.
In an ideal world, we would all be starting from a clean slate and building the perfect system from scratch. But that’s just not practical, which is why legacy modernization often means working with older technology but adding agility and innovation to it. In many cases, the idea of ripping out legacy systems is simply unapproachable. And often those systems are very good at doing what they were designed to do. The problem comes when you need them to do something they weren’t designed to do.
Our approach to legacy modernization helps you retain the best of what works and shed the parts that are inefficient or irrelevant. You’re capitalizing on knowledge already acquired, which is a competitive edge in itself. It’s crucial to approach legacy modernization as an ongoing effort. One principle of determining when to engage in legacy modernization is if your current system is hampering your company’s ability to achieve recently established goals. Your goals shouldn’t accommodate your technology; your technology should enable your goals.
1. Cost reduction By prioritizing legacy modernization, you open up opportunities to reduce the cost of lost efficiency by acquiring up-to-date technological capabilities.
2. Increased productivity Simultaneously, you’re prioritizing the retention and enhancement of the parts of existing systems that keep your organization doing its best work.
3. Greater agility This allows you to advance towards faster growth when the agility and productivity of your systems match your company’s inherent advantage, courtesy of years of experience in your industry.
4. Improved security One of the most vital benefits of engaging in legacy modernization is how it will contribute to your company and your customers through improved security. Using the latest processes to protect the data your company relies on to conduct business is reason enough to ensure your legacy systems are up to date.
5. More stability The more consistently you update your processes, the less daunting of an endeavor it will be to upkeep your systems and make sure they’re relevant for years to come. The learning curve will also be less steep. There is a time-cost difference between the IT team learning how to navigate smaller updates in an ongoing manner versus tackling a complete overhaul every several years.
There are many ways to lead legacy modernization efforts, and it requires reflection on your business priorities and honest discussions about weak points. From rearchitecting to mitigating risk, whatever approach you land on, you’ll want to find the most efficient way to go about updating your systems.
Solutions like low-code automation allow your team to design applications in a collaborative way that goes beyond the IT team. Allowing your company’s business experts to provide both input and build is a smart way to get a more well-rounded product that serves the whole company’s needs efficiently.
Before you go, get your free copy of The Ultimate Guide to Low-Code Automation to see how other organizations are tackling their legacy systems, boosting efficiency, compliance, and the customer experience.
