5 of the Most Common Legacy App Modernisation Challenges for Businesses

It's not uncommon for a business to continue running on legacy applications long after they've been outpaced by modern technology. While there are a number of reasons this happens, the most common is the difficulty of migration.

As technology continues to advance at a rapid pace, organisations looking to transition to a more modern approach are often confused about where to begin. Since in-house resources are dedicated to maintaining legacy applications, the task of keeping up with current technology is either done on employees' own time or on-the-fly as it's needed. As a result, internal teams don’t necessarily have the skills, experience, or resources to seize the right opportunities or prepare for the obstacles that lie ahead.

Luckily, businesses can say goodbye to those out-of-date applications once and for all with help from the right partner. Legacy application modernisation services are invaluable and designed to help businesses handle any challenge that comes their way. Partnering with a consultant company that has experience modernising legacy applications across a variety of industries and organisations can help you find the solutions that best fit your needs and make the modernisation process as frictionless as possible.

5 Common Legacy Application Modernisation Challenges

When it comes to legacy app modernisation, many companies encounter a set of common challenges that need to be overcome in order to achieve successful transformation. Those include:

1. A lack of necessary skills and resources

Modernised applications tend to require a different set of skills and resources than legacy versions. For modernisation to be successful, companies need people who are well-versed in cloud-native architectures and DevOps processes to implement and maintain changes effectively.

In terms of resources, most businesses running legacy apps won’t have the required solution accelerators and frameworks in place. What’s more, if an organisation needs to rewrite an app from scratch, it will require an extensive amount of time and money that internal teams may not have. An external team, however, can provide both the skills and resources that some organisations lack.

2. A lack of institutional knowledge

The longer a legacy application is used at a company, the less likely that current employees understand the specifics behind the way it functions. When employees that possess this knowledge retire or move on to different companies, crucial context is lost. In many cases, even necessary technical documentation cannot be located. This makes it difficult for companies to determine the best path forward.

If a company isn't sure why an application functions the way it does, how can it be sure a replacement will work the way it needs to in order to avoid workflow disruptions? Consider the help of experienced consultants who can guide an organisation in the right direction.

3. Unseen areas of weakness

Because a business's knowledge and skill sets are primarily built around legacy applications, there’s a good chance its leaders aren’t fully aware of all the things they’re missing out on by not migrating them. These unintentional deficiencies can get in the way of enacting meaningful change through modernisation.

In the same way that shipping businesses were transformed by the proliferation of planes, modern businesses can take advantage of technological advances to transform their own company. Without experts who can open an organisation's eyes to these possibilities, however, these changes are slow to happen, if at all.

4. Difficulty future-proofing

Because technology is continuously changing, modernisation can seem like something of a Sisyphean effort. After all, what good is bringing applications up to date if they’re only going to be obsolete again in a few years? While it isn't possible to predict the future, the right knowledge can help businesses build solutions that can adapt to changes and advancements.

Building modular applications, while complex, can help companies better face whatever comes next. Taking this approach, however, often requires outside help.

5. Insufficient planning

Without the proper experience and expertise in place, businesses are stuck dealing with bumps in the road as they come, prolonging the implementation process and increasing costs. In order to succeed in modernisation, a business needs to take the time to establish a digital strategy and target architecture, as well as correctly score or prioritise its opportunities.

Any business change is going to bring its own unique challenges and roadblocks. Drawing on our years of experience, CTG has developed a recipe for managing the changes that come with modernisation, helping businesses come out on top.

CTG has enabled companies of all sizes to modernise, whether they need help with only a single application or a whole suite of apps. Our experts do more than handle the technical aspects—they evaluate opportunities, lay out benefits, and calculate ROI. In other words, CTG can help develop the business case for modernisation and help justify the expense.

What’s more, because CTG works with a wide variety of businesses, our solutions are not tied to any specific platform or vendor. Our goal is not to evangelise any specific technology but rather to address the unique needs of each of our clients. To find out more about what CTG can do to help businesses modernise, reach out today.

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