Legacy Application Modernization Services & Consulting
Evolve your systems to future-proof your businessWhy legacy modernization is a must
Your legacy applications are not like fine wine—they don’t get better with age. Yet customer expectations and user needs are constantly evolving. Companies with strong legacy system modernization strategies will be much better positioned to flex to these changes, now and in the future.
Old systems with technical debt don’t play well with new systems, which can be a huge drag on new development. Legacy applications are also expensive to maintain: All that money you’ll spend keeping old software afloat could be much better spent on a modern, scalable software solution!
When it comes to legacy software modernization, time is truly of the essence. The pool of developers who can support your old system grows smaller each day, while speed-to-market becomes increasingly critical. In order to keep up with competitors and digital disruptors, you need to move faster on product and feature releases. Your legacy systems will keep your teams bound to workflows that slow your business processes and hinder your agility.
Where there’s the will, we can find the way! We’ve guided organizations of all types on their modernization journeys, providing top-notch application modernization services. It’s a complex road—we’ve seen companies start and stall for a number of avoidable reasons. So don’t go it alone! Even if you can’t see them now, the modernization pitfalls you’ll avert down the line are worth committing to a partner-in-evolution today.
Want to get started on bringing your legacy software up to speed?
So many IT organizations are still devoting anywhere from 60 to 80% of their time, energy, human resources and budget to supporting legacy systems rather than developing transformative solutions.
Legacy modernization drivers
If you’re exploring application modernization services, you’re probably feeling the burden that old systems are putting on your teams and your business. The reasons to change are everywhere and mounting: Once you recognize the signs you’ll realize why it’s so important to begin.
EXTERNAL PRESSURES
Consumerization of technology
The bar on experience is rising: Businesses must look at their own IT people as customers in order to operate efficiently. Intuitive user experiences and seamless integration are table stakes for both business users and consumers.
The data
revolution
The dramatic increase in available data necessitates new capabilities to deliver deeper insights. Legacy systems often give way scattered or inaccessible data—leading to uninformed decision-making and missed opportunities.
The growth
imperative
The competitive landscape is growing, with mounting pressure from disruptors. Software can be your differentiator. Transformation is critical to gain the competitive edge—and that evolution starts with legacy application modernization.
INTERNAL CATALYSTS
Inevitability
Legacy applications get more complex over time, which can be a real drag on your development. Old systems accumulate technical debt, which makes it difficult to add new features and integrate with new tech.
Cost
While you may balk at the cost of rewriting legacy applications, don’t forget that it gets expensive to maintain legacy systems over time—and that cost becomes less justifiable as technology around it evolves.
Attrition
When the people who wrote your old code move on, that tribal knowledge goes with them. Legacy applications written in old languages may repel modern developers, and it’s inefficient to teach new dogs old tricks.
Benefits of legacy modernization services
It can feel intimidating to start down the path of rewriting your legacy applications, but the short and long term benefits certainly outweigh the upfront time and costs. And the sooner you start modernizing legacy systems, the sooner you begin to realize the benefits!
Operational efficiency
When the bottleneck is the system, the system must change: Legacy modernization speeds up product and feature releases and improves efficiency for end-users via a much-better UX and digitization of more products and services.
Reduced costs
Once you migrate your legacy application, you’ll be able to stop pouring money into costly mainframes and spend much less on software, hardware, and licensing.
IT agility
Freeing yourself from a tightly coupled monolith enables you to respond more quickly to change. Legacy system modernization introduces new tools and processes that make you more agile as an organization.
Business resilience
A system that’s flexible and resilient makes your business more attractive to users, customers, partners, investors, and new talent. You’ll also be able to proactively respond to changing needs or curveballs in your market.
Our legacy modernization services
Mainframe
Modernization
Replatforming &
Cloud Migration
Code
Transformation
UI/UX
Modernization
Integration
Modernization
Legacy system modernization success stories
As experienced providers of legacy system and application modernization services, we’ve guided clients of all kinds through the process of getting their systems—and teams—up to speed. Because there’s no one-size-fits-all approach, we take the time to get to know your needs and goals, so we can get you to value-realization most efficiently. Check out some of our successes!
Breaking away from a monolith and into the future
We partnered with a legacy financial company to guide them through the legacy system modernization process. The new microservices architecture we designed and developed empowers them to meet new needs more efficiently.
Moving OrthoKinematics to a modern, scalable architecture
We helped OrthKinematics rewrite their system in .NET and move to a modern architecture. This helped strengthen their portfolio, eliminate profit-busting hosting costs, and accelerate speed-to-market.
Scaling Spindlemedia’s tax office software and business
Spindlemedia’s legacy application, written in an old language, needed an upgrade to support new clients. We helped them move to a modern web-based application and equipped their team with new processes and practices.
A fresh UX enhances performance for SLTX users and customers
This non-profit needed legacy application modernization for two different systems that were causing lags. We interviewed users and designed an intuitive experience that has drastically improved response times.
Legacy system modernization phases
Rewriting legacy applications isn’t just a one-and-done project, it can be a multiphase engagement that requires significant resources. That’s why we’ve developed a careful, tactical approach to get you to business value quickest.
PHASE 1: PLAN
Assess the business
A thorough and thoughtful system modernization assessment mitigates risks often associated with business-critical IT efforts. We not only survey your old system, we look at the business capabilities of the organization and your team.
Set the boundaries
Isolating your modernization effort creates focus. By goal-setting, you’ll be able to identify the thing you want to change and hone the impact you want to make. We help you figure out what the most important elements are to change, weighing all factors.
Choose your starting point
Once you determine where to focus your efforts, now you’ll decide what to start on. We offer some expert advice on that decision which involves evaluating objective and subjective criteria and identifying the elements that are high value and low risk.
PHASE 2: EXPAND
Launch your pilot
A pilot means building a small part of the big picture while putting modernized processes into play. We guide you through, from concept to deployment and testing, and focus on training, observation, and recalibration along the way.
Measure and manage
Once you have something in production, we can gather quantitative data based on your KPIs, then survey users for real-life feedback. Looking at these metrics together allows us to manage expectations going forward and effectively prevent scope creep.
PHASE 3: SCALE
Ongoing considerations
The learnings we gain at the start of your legacy modernization project will accelerate your efforts going forward. We make sure teams are open to change, and focus on continual improvement processes like: assessing the user groups, ongoing training, and diligent documentation.
Preparing for the next phase
Now, not only do we have hands-on learnings, we have tools for prioritization. Some tactics we employ to identify which feature to tackle next include: Turning “nice-to-haves” into the next thing, working on features close to the one completed, seeding plans from the start, or reassessing your goals and identifying new needs.
As you can see—rewriting legacy applications is an ongoing and iterative process, involving more than just your systems. That’s why it’s critical to have an experienced transformation partner to keep your team progressing smoothly in the right direction!
Insights from the legacy modernization experts
Want to know more about navigating legacy system modernization projects? These articles from our experts who have deep development knowledge and project expertise outline every step of the process in detail.
How to prevent these 4 legacy system modernization pitfalls
Because most teams don’t have prior experience with legacy modernization projects, they’re subject to common pitfalls. Learn what they are and how to avoid them.
Modernization methods to get your system up to speed
Learn how assessing the gap between your system and business will inform your legacy system modernization journey.
An incremental approach to managing change overload during modernization
Legacy software modernization is fundamentally about change—and change is hard for people. Learn how to manage the process to improve morale, and your potential for success.
Driving user adoption with an MVP approach to IT modernization
Traditional approaches to legacy system modernization generally cause a major dip in user-adoption mid-way through. Learn what an MVP approach is and how it can improve your user adoption curve drastically.
Aligning people and teams during legacy system modernization
Complex software projects carry a lot of inherent risk. Learn how to align people and teams—with the business and each other—to prevent any pitfalls and accelerate application modernization.
How to approach requirements gathering for legacy system rewrites
Writing clear and accurate requirements is challenging. This combined approach aligns business and IT towards modernization success.
Rewriting your multi-lingual system for better maintainability
Legacy systems often inherit a lot of different languages. See how consolidating multiple code languages can benefit your system and business.
