Today, businesses need to automate and accelerate time to market, as well as making sales, pricing, supply chain or marketing changes on the fly. Core modernization is the essential backbone for improved business, especially so for incumbent firms who want to compete against digital newcomers.
Locked in with ageing systems? The burden of legacy systems can be gruesome to competitiveness. What are the table stakes of being truly digital then? It’s all about modernizing core infrastructure and removing or re-engineering the legacy systems and workflows that impede change.
This core modernization involves updating IT platforms, applications, data and security to enable the delivery of digital services and experiences that make business more responsive and agile. The cloud is an obvious deployment candidate, as it delivers advantages such as rapid deployment, elastic compute capacity, procurement simplicity, ubiquitous access and low upfront costs. Check out Forrester's report on 10 Facts Every Tech Leader Should Know About Hybrid Cloud to learn more about it.
Unfortunately, most enterprises can’t change at the same pace as cloud-based digital natives. First, they worry about changing the legacy platforms that are home to valuable business logic and revenue-earning services. Second, they can be locked into complex IT contracts that inhibit transformation.
Often, businesses will face a choice of three actions:
• Contain, where the application can’t be modernized but still needs to be kept running;
• Maintain, where the service is business-critical but can have its life extended;
• Invest, where new digital services can be built.
Modernization programmes aren’t easy, and many organizations fear downtime, service interruption and change management. Companies have often attempted to modernize by migrating applications to the cloud using a “lift and shift” approach, but have then failed to realize the full potential of cloud. Application-led modernization programmes designed on business needs, budgets, time windows and other factors have been more successful, but undertaking them requires a mindset change.
Change management is hugely important and can be tricky, but success can be dramatic. Ultimately, core modernization provides the underlying backbone for improved business and every organization needs to think about how it can strengthen its core. Learn more about how to do it in this in-depth article.
Are legacy systems causing you pain? Download this step-by-step guide about how to modernize your IT core.
