6 Steps To Overcome Your Business Modernization Challenges
To effectively compete in today’s fast-paced, data-centric business environment, organizations need to revolutionize their business operations. They need to go through digital transformation and design a whole new enterprise to keep the business ahead of the curve. However, implementing modernization initiatives come with its own set of challenges.
A major roadblock is changing the legacy tech systems that are still used to run business operations. Over time businesses create services, policies, and practices which their internal teams adhere to the word. Deviation from these practices involves dropping the known and accepting the new promising tech systems that are unproven and unexplored.
The best way to overcome such challenges is to have a long-term strategy to modernize your business. But the bigger question is, why modernization is even important?
Why Business Modernization is important?
“The primary route for a business to invest in itself apart from building a new product is ‘Technology or Application Modernization.’ Modernizing an organization’s technology platform, products, practices, and policies keep them running with the surge, and if not ahead, it will prevent them from falling behind.”
– Gaurav Gupta, Director of Delivery & Technology, iLink Digital
Moore’s Law is one of the most cited observations regarding the pace of technological change in the 21st century. It refers to the prediction of exponential growth in the number of transistors used in chips, meaning to improve the computing power. This indicator applies to technological evolution as a whole, especially with the advancement in Artificial Intelligence and other technologies.
That is why they say, “Today’s businesses are moving faster than Moore’s law would predict.”
Year by year, the investment rate on technology is surging simply because technology has come forward from “Overheads” to “Business Driver.” Studies reveal that by 2023, money spent on technologies and digital-transformation-enabled services worldwide will reach $2.3 trillion. Customer will no longer have needs as they had 10 years ago. Given the current situation with COVID-19, people accept the ‘new normal’ and expect digitally-driven practices.
Businesses need to take advantage of this change and go modern to fulfill their customer’s needs. Modernization will help them in development, integration, and expansion into newer industries. Companies that do not invest in these business drivers are bound to be left behind and eventually go belly up.
Related Reading: 5 Signs It’s Time to Modernize Your Applications.
Strategies to overcome Business Modernization challenges
In the hands of engineers and stakeholders who are not technology modernization professionals, a modernization project can be classified as an experiment rather than a project.”
–Gaurav Gupta, Director of Delivery & Technology, iLink Digital
Though the best approach for modernization depends upon the problem that needs to be solved, here are some of the strategies to begin your journey in the right direction.
- Understand the “Why?” of Modernization.
This is the most crucial step of the modernization process. When organizations are looking to modernize their IT systems, they probably want to replace or improve upon the existing ones with a more functional and simplified workflow.
Therefore, before making a modernization decision, leaders and stakeholders should be clear about these three questions:
- Why they should implement modernization?
- What’s driving the need for modernization?
- And what business value it will deliver?
They need to understand the business’s current state and the opportunities that modernization will bring in five to ten years. They should also evaluate project and business needs, lay out the goals, understand the vision of the initiative and then plan a timeline. Once these factors are clear, leaders can then carve out time and allot proper resources.
- Create a solid IT Modernization roadmap
Planning business modernization does not need to be a lengthy strategy. Once you understand your company’s current business patterns and future vision, you can develop a process that works best for you. However, it’s important to perform a feasibility test to determine whether you need to migrate from on-premises to the cloud or just upgrade the existing on-premises environment to support cloud-native technologies.
You can even lay out a sequence of metrics and milestones to meet along the way such as re-evaluating your cloud infrastructure, automation process, and market share. Be flexible to go through multiple development iterations and testing cycles to ensure a successful roadmap. Discuss with your partners the scope and extent of your modernization roadmap. Articulate the constraints and risks associated.
Defining the best path forward can be tricky. However, the most successful modernization outcomes stem from business-centric frameworks. It helps leaders make sound decisions along the modernization journey.
- Start Small, Segment, and Prioritize.
A legacy system cannot be modernized all at once. Leaders need to divide the efforts and sequence them to understand which task to prioritize first. It’s better to start with a small proof of concept to get clarity about which things need to be digitized or transformed. This way it won’t be too complex to manage and organize the modernization process initiatives.
IT decision-makers can do the portfolio mapping exercise and understand their digital estates better. Figuring out the roadmap towards modernizing empowers the organization and provides a competitive advantage.
- Protect Legacy Data
Evolving from a legacy tech can be challenging. Especially when it involves protecting, maintaining, and curating the legacy data while transitioning. Hence it’s important to plan ways to protect your data before, during, and after modernization to avoid any data loss or duplication. Build an architecture with future capability and expansion in mind as technology will continue to evolve.
- Follow User-Centric Approach
Though modernization is a business process, the outcome must focus on the end-user service to create a positive and productive experience with their technology. You can start by examining a set of experiences like availability, response time from customers, and end-user satisfaction. After all, it’s your customer who will benefit the most from these changes.
Allow your agile frameworks and digital features to test across different customer profiles and end-user experiences. Digital modernization is by nature an evolutionary process that requires flexibility and agility. Instead of adhering to strict protocols ensure all stakeholders have a shared understanding of the practices involved. This way you can pivot your approach on positive outcomes rather than just process.
- Choose the right Legacy Modernization partner
Business actions may have restrictions but their vision should not. They should be motivated to focus on business requirements and wants when it comes to modernizing the legacy system. Based on their documented wishlist and with the IT department in two, leaders should use the RFP route to look for a partner or vendor who is an expert in modernization. Only after detailed discussions, reviews, and assessments, they should transfer the project and the risk of modernizing their product and platform to a professional company.
Check out the latest trends and stats on Application Modernization.
How iLink’s Modernization solutions can help?
iLink is a professional in Technology and App Modernization. And we do not just make that claim in vain. We have seen and created the best architectures, frameworks, and Center of Excellence for various knowledge areas like Cloud, Database, .Net Solutions, etc., to name a few.
Our step-by-step process and framework, extremely skilled team, and decades of experience make us a top pick in the modernization segment. We have created dozens of frameworks, methodologies, and processes to attack any modernization challenge that comes our way. Above mentioned innovative, intuitive, yet simple-to-follow approaches have proven time and again for us, and we have repeatedly delivered wins for our clients.
Another thing that sets up apart is our mindset. We believe in closing the loop, finding winning equations, gathering & maintaining quality resources, and always learning. As a result, even our managers and directors are qualified and certified engineers who talk tech before talking business.
Check out our dedicated webpage for Application Modernization along with a few case studies showcasing our accomplishments. If you are looking for a modernization approach with the highest effect and value, get in touch with us!
