Importance and Benefits of Application Modernization
The IT landscape has transformed beyond recognition in recent years. The challenge today for most IT organizations is that they’re operating in an entirely new digital arena, but still they continue to rely on monolithic legacy systems.
Vindicating this observation is a recent survey according to which 31% of an organization’s infrastructure is comprised of legacy systems. Furthermore, only 33% of technology in large organizations is modernized.
When these systems were developed, many failed to scope out the amount of flexibility and agility that would be needed in the digital arena. Nor did they foresee that there would be a need to create composite applications.
However, in the present digital world, these malleable abilities are precisely what modern applications need to possess.
The Legacy Conundrum
IT companies that depend on legacy applications often encounter hurdles like incompatibility, undesired maintenance costs, and a scarcity of legacy coders. This ails organizations in their abilities to effectively achieve complete digital transformation. Fanning the flames is the integration challenges the legacy application brings along. Legacy apps are hard to integrate with modern technologies like AI, IoT, and Cloud.
The statistical insights indicate:
- 90% of businesses are impeded from harnessing the full potential of digital technologies due to their reliance on legacy applications
- 65% of businesses believe that legacy systems are incapable of addressing the emerging requirements of the digital business
- 88% of IT leaders agree that modernized IT systems are critical to meet emerging digital business demands
- 80% believe that not modernizing IT systems will negatively impact the long-term growth of their organization
Application Modernization: Breaking the Legacy Conundrum
In a nutshell, application modernization is the process of updating existing legacy applications, or building entirely new ones, to better align with the business objectives. Modernizing helps organizations to stave off the legacy code and take advantage of new, innovative tech. Rearchitecting legacy applications enables organizations to realize the much-needed flexibility and agility to address imperative business requirements and seize opportunities for future growth.
Why modernize your legacy applications?
- 15-35% infrastructure year-over-year savings
- 30-50% lower application maintenance and running costs
- 74% lower costs on hardware, software, and staff
- 10% improvement in application operational efficiency
- 14% boost in annual revenue, which equates to USD 1 billion on average for large organizations
Across many industries, forward-thinking companies are embracing new thinking and techniques around modernizations to turn legacy into an asset.
In fact, 65% of organizations will aggressively modernize legacy systems with extensive new technology platforms and investments through 2023.
Let’s look at some of the potential benefits that applications modernization brings along:
The Business Benefits of Application Modernization
1) Competitive edge
While your competitors are still pondering, you can reap the advantages of a head start by embracing application modernization. Take the leap of faith by modernization the applications which would double down on organization’s digital adoption. Modernization enables your organization to integrate modern platforms and technologies and outpace laggards.
2) Enhanced compatibility
Modernization of legacy applications enhances its interoperability with new technologies, platforms, and code. In addition, it enables organizations to seamlessly integrate their applications, so they’re better positioned to meet current and future business demands.
3) Cloud-native
Modernization aids organizations in rearchitecting their legacy applications to cloud-native applications. This enables you to embrace cloud benefits like faster speed to market, scalability, agility, and lower costs.
4) Better efficiencies
Modernizing applications improves process efficiencies and business performance. Apps can be updated frequently and refined with bug fixes and security patches. Modernization ushers in operational simplicity and alleviates the burden on IT operations.
5) Robust security
In a recent survey, 87% of IT decision-makers admitted that legacy applications make businesses more vulnerable to security threats. This is because obsolete applications are incompatible with modern security standards and authentication methods. Modernizing your applications can drastically wick off security vulnerabilities that legacy systems pose.
6) Improved user satisfaction
Whether it’s your employees or customers, using legacy applications can be a real hassle. Modernizing applications with a refined user-facing interface, leading-edge functionalities, and innovative features will improve customer satisfaction and brand reputation.
7) Staying relevant
Application modernization enables organizations to make the most of the digital technologies, including AI, machine learning, big data, and cloud. It helps transform your IT ecosystem based on current market trends and build a flexible foundation for future innovation.
8) Productivity boost
According to IBM, updating legacy stems could boost developers’ productivity by as much as 40%. Modernizing applications and facilitating access to better developer services can help make engineering teams more productive and enhance time-to-market.
The Right Course
Though there are many approaches for legacy application modernization, each organization must choose the course that aligns with their strategic priorities. All modernization approaches may come with their own benefits, but they tend to be costly, complex, and challenging. A more efficient option for achieving software modernization is partnering with an external service provider like Veritis.
Veritis is uniquely positioned to help you plan and implement the right modernization strategy based on your current and future business needs. Our application modernization services offer an iterative, low-risk approach to build, modernize, and manage applications securely across hybrid cloud environments. Reach out to us to enhance the value of your existing apps and reduce their maintenance cost.
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