Common reasons to maintain legacy systems vary among organisations and often include:

1. They still fulfil a business need or are mission-critical systems. Organisations often customise systems to their own requirements and then lack the technical specifications to create a new system with the same features as the legacy system.
2. It is an old technology investment that hasn’t been recovered yet. As IT systems are expensive, organisations need to use them for a certain amount of time to make a profit from such investment.
3. Replacing a legacy system involves investing a quantity of resources – money, time and staff – the company can’t always spare. Or the company lacks the IT skills to migrate the legacy system.

However, when legacy technology is a barrier to digital transformation, it’s time to consider migration options. External organisations can often help with the migration, implementation or even training.

Today’s consumers expect a strong digital experience, and complex legacy technology is a significant barrier to being able to deliver that. We have reached the tipping point when modernisation is essential.

Here are a few things to consider when developing the business case to support the digital transformation:

1. The need for speed – the pandemic has highlighted the need for speed and agility. The days of quarterly releases and 18- to 24 -month projects are gone, organisations are now looking for iterative processes. Speed is a true competitive differentiator.
2. Customers expect a seamless digital experience  - and they’re getting it from digital-native firms that can iterate continuously as they monitor customer interactions and react to the feedback. Legacy environments rarely can adopt this type of iterative customer engagement. Your new ROI model should address the impact a legacy system upgrade will have on customer experience.
3. New markets and ecosystems – in order to innovate, organisations are embracing opportunities to enter new markets, engage and delight customers, and rethink business models through digital platforms and tech-enabled ecosystems. This is difficult to do – perhaps impossible when your IP is trapped in bespoke legacy systems.
4. Full potential  - legacy solutions lack flexibility, integration capability, and carry a significant technology debt due to dated languages, databases (and) architectures. This prevents many organisations from advancing and supporting analytics, real-time transactions, and a digital experience.
5. Talent issues pose a risk – it’s increasingly difficult to find people to operate and support legacy technologies. As people retire or move on in their roles, organisations will need to consider how older technology is maintained and supported.
6. Everything new is built in the cloud  – with many organisations shifting to a hybrid workforce, on-premise solutions will need to be shifted to the cloud.
7. Security risk  – While the security of cloud solutions still requires care, it is clear that older technologies are more difficult to control, monitor and secure as security paradigms and solutions evolve.
8. Data management and privacy – it’s difficult to comply with the latest best practices and controls when data is stored in multiple legacy systems, replicated in myriad warehouses and data stores.
9. Old systems require increasing investment to maintain –  and this expenditure grows as technology ages and becomes more susceptible to risk. For some organisations it’s as high as 70 or 80% of their IT budget. When it crosses a particular threshold, it’s time to evaluate options.

However, the biggest consideration is the lost agility and efficiency. Legacy systems can hold back innovation, resulting in significant losses. Outdated software is less efficient, which has a negative impact on employee productivity.

When considering market opportunities, or responding to a crisis, timing is critical. Whilst moving from legacy IT to agile, digitally enabled IT can seem complex and challenging, it is necessary to meet modern IT demands.

Ensuring that there is a plan in place, including team training will help mitigate some of the risks.

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