IT modernization, a business imperative that hinges on digital transformation, has become vital for future-forward enterprises. Fast-evolving engineering is leveraging cloud-based alternatives that integrate DevOps, APIs, serverless architecture, and microservices for business betterment. Incremental integration of company-wide sensory networks, blockchain, and smart (cognitive) computing is renewing archaic IT systems and validating their product-market fit.
However, a transition from legacy systems onto newer, agile architectures is a challenge few organizations want to tackle head-on. Some waver, others falter midway and run their migration plans into jeopardy with a lack of endeavor, if not ambition.
To be clear, creating an IT modernization roadmap is a dynamic process. It requires rigorous brainstorming, planning, and forecasting to achieve critical mass. Therefore, in this article, we will share with you five strategies for technology modernization.
What is IT Modernization?
In short, IT modernization refers to the process of updating either partial or complete software layers underpinning the enterprise for improved productivity, optimized performance, and maximized technological efficiency.
Software gets outdated rather rapidly. Undertaking in-house modernization of technology has become intertwined with realizing sustainable profitability and maintaining marketplace supremacy. But that is not the only reason being propounded to go ahead with such plans.
Legacy Core IT systems are often heavy on upkeep and running expenditure. A Deloitte Global CIO Survey found that it is such investments that consume the maximum bandwidth of the total investments allocated towards IT.
In what has turned out to be quite paradoxical, higher costs are correlated to lower productivity. The same survey, when quizzed the sample participants on their view of technologies most likely to have a grassroots impact on IT, then analytics, digital, and cloud platforms emerged as the victor. The need for a digital modernization strategy towards such verticals, therefore, couldn’t be understated.
Viewed from the corporate prism, modernization of technology is being undertaken with an eye on customer centricity to lift business optimization at par with the standards of the digital age.
Is it the Right Time for an IT Modernization Strategy?
Technological paradigms have rendered an age of non-stop, perfectionist advancement. Legacy systems could cover up for judgemental error from their human overlords, however, technology modernization could, in theory, instate a company’s competitive edge and help them galvanize IT resources at an unprecedented level of effectiveness.
Internet connectivity, mobile-device mass penetration, and digital adoption on part of the customer are augmenting data creation. A macroeconomic world that rewards first-to-the-market producers demands the onset of flexible, scalable IT architectures to innovate at pace.
And as if the aforementioned trends don’t signal the trends, the same vendors supporting legacy IT systems have (ironically) launched custom-built, ready-to-run, new-generation product offerings for enterprise customers. ERP vendors are at the top of this list competing aggressively with cloud vendors to offer mid-office and back-office solutions.
Another case in point is the Common Business Oriented Language (COBOL) that has seen a drop in learner uptake pointing to the dropping popularity of mainframe programming languages, used to support legacy systems. Such factors have cornered CIOs and made them seriously consider their technology modernization strategy. Some of the common questions to ask oneself before creating a technology modernization strategy are as follows:
- Are business functions finding the current IT stack an impediment?
- How will the immediate goals of business units influence core IT?
- What computational resources are required to uplift business performance?
This up-close evaluation should handhold you to modernize technology. It’s important to note that end-to-end systematic changes may not be the prescribed course of action for all. Variable factors such as organization size, vision, and outlook should help derive the extent of tech enablement required at the core. Basis this, the digital modernization strategy could equate to a mere retrofit of the proverbial spinal cord of legacy systems.
The aim of this entire rigmarole is to acquire a simplistic, and business-friendly workflow. As a result, road mapping cannot be visualized without first understanding the in-use software system. Project estimation, timeline setting, and goal formation come subsequently in the course of action. Having developed a supposedly useful system iteration, further steps unfold towards perfecting the newer version for use.
However, before that let us first take a look at some typical examples of IT modernization.
Examples of IT Modernization
Here are the typical examples of infrastructure modernization that enterprises usually undertake:
ERP Upgrades – ERP systems power digital businesses in extending a centralized software platform to handle purchase orders, inventories, SKUs, marketing campaigns, finances, and human resources among other assets. Therefore, upgrading to a new ERP solution is common as ERP products that better align to a company’s vision hit the market.
Mergers & Acquisition – M&A are part and parcel of the business world. A lot of software decommissioning and digital retrofitting comes along when two distinct entities merge. This is an opportune moment for evolving your IT vertebrae to industry standards.
EDI Transformation – Electronic Data Transfer Systems have been fueling global business growth for quite some time. However, a good portion of large-scale supply chains continue to operate on archaic legacy EDI foundational layers that need renovation.
