On-premises, monolithic applications may have worked for your business at one time. However, as your business grows, the software may be left behind and be unable to meet your organization's needs. Considering the rapidly evolving technology, legacy applications may be unable to adapt and become obsolete. This is why application modernization is vital to businesses.
Application modernization is the process of modernizing an existing legacy application. It may involve re-coding or converting the language, internal re-architecture, updating platform infrastructure, and improving features.
Modernizing your organization's processes and systems offers many benefits. At the outset, it can help simplify your company's operations, which is a crucial driver for success. Some organizations are hesitant about app modernization because of its perceived cost and potential changes. However, this is a necessary transition that every organization needs. Enterprises that stick to their old system run the risk of quickly becoming irrelevant and fall behind the competition. On the other hand, businesses that modernize can leverage technology to their advantage.
Below are the key benefits of modernizing existing legacy applications.
Improved efficiency
Managing, securing, and troubleshooting old legacy systems can eat up a tremendous amount of time. The use of monolithic applications increases the risk of challenges that requires additional man-hours and resources.
With modernization, you can fully maximize your staff's time. Instead of spending hours troubleshooting the IT infrastructure, they can focus on core functions and other valuable projects. This improves efficiency within your organization.
Improve security
Nearly seven of 10 business leaders consider cybersecurity as their most significant concern. According to the Council of Economic Advisers, malicious cyber activity costs the US economy between US$57 billion and US$109 billion in 2016. This makes it extremely important for businesses to lay out a comprehensive IT security plan that is secured against all types of cyber threats. Older applications are at an increased risk for a security breach. Often, it requires a third-party cloud service to beef up security capabilities. App modernization equips the solution with up-to-date security features.
Likewise, app modernization creates better data management. The administrator has full control and visibility about how data are used and who has access to them. Integrated IT infrastructures make it easier to secure the data.
Cloud-ready application
As the digital world moves to the cloud, your business application should be ready to adapt to this new trend. Older IT systems are not cloud-ready. Legacy applications designed for on-premise deployment functions optimally in this setup. Forcing them to run in the cloud is counter-productive. Aside from its very limited capacity, it can suffer from more performance issues instead of actual solutions. This is a waste of time and resources in the long-term.
Modernizing your business application is the only way to make it cloud-ready. This is a worthwhile investment considering the many advantages of the cloud.
Develop your talent pool
Consider your IT team and developers as your organization's assets. They should also grow alongside your business. In an increasingly competitive market, they want to develop their capabilities continuously. Sticking with old applications deprives them of this opportunity. Without modernization, your IT team might feel lacking in terms of skill development and decide to leave you for greener pastures. After all, who wants to be stuck in a fading technology?
Veteran developers overseeing Tricension's legacy application modernization emphasize the importance of building the IT team's skill set. Application modernization can help achieve this. It can also help retain your talent and acquire new talent who are trained with the latest technologies. Being able to go along with the latest technologies is a win-win scenario for you and your IT personnel.
Boost IT agility
Businesses must invest in an IT infrastructure that can provide resources necessary to implement business strategies. Monolithic platforms have limited resources, not capable of supporting your future application development efforts. Without modernization, you might lag behind your competitors.
Agile IT infrastructure enables your business to maximize the latest technologies, such as automation. With new technologies, you can equip your business application with better features and functionalities. Modernization also unburdens your development teams of the need to manage infrastructure failures; hence, they can focus on improving the quality of innovations.
Longevity
Even if your existing legacy software works optimally on the cloud, it might not be able to handle new features, patches, and updates. Built for on-premise deployment, legacy applications have limited capabilities and resources. Each new release or update might cause it to break down. Therefore, instead of providing solutions, these updates might limit the performance of the software. Worse, unwanted crashes can hamper service delivery.
By modernizing business applications, your business software can handle new patches, updates, and features. The software can remain useful and relevant to your business for a far longer time.
Increased revenues
Finally, modernization can significantly boost your revenues by ensuring streamlined processes, integrated systems, efficient execution of business strategy, and reduction in operational costs. These are vital in building your organization's customer value. By ensuring customer satisfaction, you can generate more revenues for your company.
Final thoughts
As emphasized above, technology evolves fast. Keeping your IT infrastructure up-to-date is vital and integral to success. Businesses that do not currently use modern software or have not invested in modernization are vulnerable and lag behind the competitions.
Application modernization is a worthwhile investment and transition process that can solve many of the issues that plague your business. If app modernization is feasible for your business, it is best to grab this opportunity. Modernizing your outdated systems keeps your business competitive and opens up opportunities for growth.
