In this segment of “Office Optional with Larry English,” Larry shares what keep in mind when approaching technology modernization within your company.
New technology is debuting at breakneck speed, and many companies struggle to keep up. Especially mid-size companies, which must balance the necessity of modernization — which often comes with a hefty price tag and major organizational disruption — with constrained budgets. How can these companies modernize cost-effectively?
It’s a puzzle many organizations still haven’t solved. According to the 2024 Gartner CIO and Technology Executive Survey, on average, only about 40 percent of organizations’ processes have been digitally optimized.
Yet legacy application modernization is critical for business success in 2024 and beyond. This isn’t simply about getting the latest tools and systems. Organizations that keep pace with modern technology can make more informed decisions more rapidly, offer a better customer and employee experience, and more deftly navigate the quickly changing business world. Organizations that fail to modernize their legacy systems, on the other hand, will be left behind.
The Problem With Technology Modernization Projects
Companies struggle with many facets of legacy modernization. For one, companies have trouble aligning on what modernization efforts to chase. When you’re still operating on legacy systems but there’re also AI and other emerging technologies to consider, there’re too many competing opportunities.
Another issue is the standard way of replacing outdated technology: through costly, disruptive projects that take months to over a year to deliver any value. The timeline is too long, too many things change along the way, and nothing is accomplished. It’s too high-risk, too-late reward.
Finally, many companies also approach their modernization strategy from a severely limited lens, thinking only in terms of applying the latest technology to their systems, says Faisal Hoque, award-winning technology entrepreneur and No. 1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author of “Reinvent: Navigating Business Transformation in a Hyperdigital Era.”
Hoque suggests that companies instead need to anchor all technology modernization efforts in how the technology will serve and improve the larger business strategy. He says leaders need to differentiate between modernization that keeps systems up to date and modernization that impacts the entire business model — and chase both types.
“A lot of people look at modernization solely from the technology migration point of view,” he says. “I would instead look at what can you add on that will tie into and modernize your overall business strategy. How can you revamp your business model to cut costs or produce goods faster or service customers better? The successful CIOs are very much focused on business model modernization and business model change versus technology modernization.”
For example, when a company implements a chatbot to interact with customers, that’s modernization that sustains your organization, keeping it up to date with modern business practices. When you take the technology one step further and use that chatbot to collect valuable customer insights, that’s modernization that leads to digital transformation.
A Better Technology Modernization Approach For Business
Mid-size companies need a phased, iterative approach to find creative ways to modernize with lower cost, lower risk, and lower organizational disruption. Use these three questions to guide the way in creating a technology modernization strategy:
What modernization benefit is most important?
First, analyze the values that are most important to the organization. Is it gaining efficiencies for customers? Attracting and retaining more top talent? Better insights into the customer journey? This exercise will help define the business cases around modernization, help prioritize what to tackle in what order and ensure your modernization strategy is anchored in your larger business strategy.
What can be done in 90 days to move the needle?
Once you’ve mapped out priorities and defined business cases, start executing on a now, next, later approach. Plan out 90 days at a time rather than everything at once. Be creative — what can be done in three months, and how will that advance your capabilities?
This approach results in a nimble plan that starts delivering value right away rather than a big, clunky initiative that’s going to cost millions and take months to complete. It also gives you room to easily respond to changes in business demands and course correct along the way.
Can AI speed up the modernization process?
AI can be a strong ally for modernization projects, helping you complete them more quickly and with less cost. Say your company needs to modernize legacy apps using outdated programming language. You can use an AI library and apply it to the outdated code to produce a set of functional requirements that are nearly complete. Then, assign an analyst to fine-tune the results and implement the functionality.
By using AI to help with modernization projects, not only are you able to deliver value more quickly, but your IT team will also gain valuable knowledge in the process. It will give them experience with AI technology that will no doubt increasingly be a regular part of business operations, giving your organization a leg up on future modernization efforts.
Technology Modernization Is Never Finished
A now, next, later approach to modernization solves many of the challenges mid-size companies face in keeping up with emerging technology. It does away with projects that cost millions and take months to deliver results, only for business conditions to have changed in the meantime. This approach also helps leaders avoid haphazard modernization—replacing outdated systems haphazardly without consideration for the impact and benefit to the overall business strategy and goals.
Plus, modernization is never going to be finished. As the business world evolves, so too will your organization need to evolve to keep up. A continuous iterative modernization approach helps you quickly pivot and respond to the changing world and ensure your business model remains relevant to current times.
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