What Should the Goal of Application Modernization Be?

During the pandemic years, countless organizations prioritized application modernization to make the digital experience seamless for consumers and employees stuck at home. And even with companies bracing for a recession, tech budgets for modernization seem safe from the chopping block for now. 

However, most companies have not seen the results they wanted from modernization. Harvard Business Review estimates the failure rate of these initiatives is 87.5%. Where are organizations going wrong? 

The problem is a foundational one: Mis-aligned or poorly established goals. Without clear, realistic goals in place with known business value to the company, there’s no way to complete an initiative successfully or even understand what success would look like. 

In this article, we’ll discuss what your goals should look like for application modernization and how to find the one that represents your company’s needs best. 

Application Modernization’s Goal 

The goal of any application modernization initiative should be to bring the most value possible to the business. What exactly “value” means depends on the company and its current circumstances. 

For companies that spend a lot of money and receive too little from their investments, “value” could mean increasing efficiency or lowering operating costs. Meanwhile, for organizations that are entering a new market or combating numerous competitors, “value” could mean improving brand reputation or customer retention. We’ll explore all these scenarios below. 

Some tech leaders reading this article may feel like the goal of application modernization is self-explanatory. Shouldn’t everything a company does be in the name of maximizing value? 

Unfortunately, that is not the reality for many organizations. For example, some tech teams focus on embracing the latest technology for its own sake. That leads the company to invest its time and money into an initiative with no clear business benefits. By carefully considering the goal of application modernization, your organization can avoid this pitfall.  

Application Modernization Goal #1: Increased Efficiency 

Just about every organization would likely admit that they could be more efficient. Legacy systems expose companies to the possibility of doing redundant work or having less than ideal workflows that drain the company’s resources and negatively impact employee morale. 

Modernization can help by integrating systems for faster workflows, migrating applications to the cloud for quick upload times, and automating processes to eliminate the need for long, redundant tasks. The modernization strategy that works best for your company depends on the current challenges of your legacy application. 

Let’s look at an example: One of our clients helps oncology practices detect if they undercharged insurance companies. This requires them to send weekly reports to each oncology practice. 

Before modernizing their application with Programmers, this company had to manually compile the reports for each client. Then, they had to send them out individually. Both processes took an average of four hours every Sunday night for employees, a major blow to their morale and the company’s efficiency. 

Using our Fast-Track Application Modernization service, we were able to fully automate this process, boosting overall efficiency and giving employees their Sundays back. Fast-Track is an iterative modernization process, allowing our client to see value within 90 days. 

Application Modernization Goal #2: Boosting Brand Reputation

Outdated applications can cause problems for your employees and customers. Software may be cumbersome, slow-running, or not sufficiently anticipate the user’s need. 

Few organizations can afford to alienate customers, either. With a looming recession, your target audience is likely looking to cut back on their costs, and you certainly don’t want your application to be on their chopping block. In Forrester’s predictions for this year, the company said customers are “seeking out fewer, richer experiences” in the digital space. 

Again, the ways in which modernization can address this depend on the current state of your application. Popular methods include modernizing the UX of legacy systems to make them more intuitive, dynamically adding new features that customers need, and migrating the application to the cloud for faster outcomes.

For example, one of our clients has software that helps universities recruit high school seniors. However, when university staff tried to upload prospect data during the busy student recruitment season, it took them a full day to import. This hurt our client’s reputation and made it harder for them to get more universities to adopt their software. 

We helped by migrating their software to the cloud, lowering upload times from one day to one hour. Being on the cloud also meant that the software could scale up or scale down operations depending on the demand. This is particularly helpful for our client in higher education, where there are clear peak usage times in the year (fall and spring semesters) and clear downtimes (winter and summer vacations). 

Application Modernization Goal #3: Lowered Operating Costs

You would be hard pressed to find a company that doesn’t want to lower its operation costs. That makes this one of the most universal benefits of application modernization. With a looming recession, a cost-cutting-oriented modernization approach could be the most compelling for your organization.

Application modernization processes can remove the need for manual reviews, costly on-premises infrastructure, redundant work, or working around messy code, all of which reduce costs. For example, cloud migration alone saves companies an average of 31% on infrastructure investments, according to AWS.  

As part of our Application Modernization Assessment, we detect which of these problems is costing your organization the most money and prioritize it in the modernization process. Instead of prescribing a one-size-fits-all modernization plan, we focus modernization on what will free up the most money for your company. 

In Conclusion

The goal of your modernization initiative should always revolve around what brings real business value to your organization. That will look a little bit different for each company, with many emphasizing improved efficiency, heightened brand reputation, or lower costs. 

Our Fast-Track Application Modernization service focuses on delivering on those business goals every 90 days. Learn what sets our modernization service apart from the rest.

Let us know how we can help you.