5 min read

Navigating Legacy Modernization: Identifying the Best First Application to Upgrade

Discover how to determine the optimal first mover for application modernization to drive favorable business results. 

Updating your enterprise applications might seem intimidating, but it’s crucial for staying ahead. With the rise of cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and mobile devices, businesses need to update their applications to remain competitive and efficient. 

Navigating this process can be challenging, but think of it as climbing a mountain: you must strategically choose the best path and pace yourself to ensure you reach the summit without unnecessary risks. 

However, knowing where to start can be overwhelming. With so many capabilities and features to consider, how do you prioritize them? Which ones should you focus on first?  

In this blog, we’ll show you how to identify the first application to modernize, highlighting the least costly and most effective approach, whether that means upgrading the entire application or just the components holding your organization back. 

Divide capabilities into three buckets 

To begin, let’s divide the capabilities of your applications into three buckets: early-stage concepts, differentiating capabilities, and foundational business capabilities. Each of these buckets has different characteristics and requirements, and they should be approached differently when it comes to modernization.  

  1. Early-stage concepts: These innovative ideas, proof-of-concepts, and pilot projects have the potential to differentiate your product with unique and rapidly evolving capabilities. 
  2. Differentiating capabilities: These capabilities set your product apart from competitors. They involve fewer governance requirements but still introduce high costs and risks when modernizing. Examples of differentiating capabilities include unique features and user experiences. 
  3. Foundational business capabilities: These capabilities support stable processes with high governance requirements, such as billing, invoicing, and customer relationship management. They are essential to your business’s daily operations. 

As illustrated in the graphic below, the costs and risks associated with modernization escalate as you progress from early-stage concepts to differentiating capabilities, and finally to foundational business capabilities.  

Divide capabilities into three buckets


Choose the right starting application for modernization 

When deciding where to begin your modernization journey, it’s essential to understand the implications of each bucket. 

Avoid starting with foundational business capabilities 

Starting with foundational business capabilities is not recommended unless absolutely necessary. These capabilities are the cash cow of your business and introduce high costs and risks when modernizing. They are deeply ingrained in your business processes and require extensive testing before modernizing. Any disruption to these capabilities can cause significant harm to your business. 

Modernizing these capabilities can be likened to climbing the steepest part of a mountain, where the challenges are greatest and the chances of failure are higher. 

If you must modernize these capabilities, you should take a cautious and strategic approach. You should conduct extensive testing, involve all stakeholders in the decision-making process, and have a clear plan for how to mitigate any potential risks. 

Start with early-stage concepts 

It’s best to start with early-stage concepts, which provide a safer environment to experiment and refine your modernization techniques. Your organization’s early-stage concepts are less ingrained in your enterprise, have fewer governance requirements, and support business processes that are evolving quickly. They are the best place to start your modernization initiative. 

This approach is like climbing the more gradual slopes of the mountain, where you can find your footing and gain experience before tackling the more challenging parts. 

When you start with early-stage concepts, you can experiment with modernization techniques and test your approach before scaling it to more complex capabilities. You can learn from your successes and failures, and you can refine your modernization approach over time. 

It’s also easier to obtain buy-in from stakeholders when starting with early-stage concepts. These concepts are often not essential to your business’s daily operations, making them less risky to modernize. Stakeholders will see the potential benefits of modernization without feeling threatened by the changes. 

Starting with differentiating capabilities 

If your organization doesn’t have any early-stage concepts, then you may start with differentiating capabilities. However, it’s always advisable to start with something light. 

These capabilities have fewer governance requirements, but they still introduce high costs and risks when modernizing. They are critical to your business’s success and should be approached strategically to avoid any disruption to daily operations. 

When modernizing differentiating capabilities, you should focus on improving their agility and flexibility. These capabilities are the ones that differentiate your product from your competitors, so it’s important to modernize them to keep up with the competition. However, you must be careful not to disrupt the daily operations of your business while modernizing. 

Take a strategic approach 

Regardless of your first mover, taking a strategic approach is essential. Modernization initiatives can introduce significant risks and challenges, and a haphazard approach can do more harm than good. 

  • Your approach should include a clear plan for how to modernize each capability, including timelines, budgets, and resources.  
  • You should involve all stakeholders in the decision-making process and ensure that everyone is aligned with the modernization goals.
  • You should also prioritize communication and collaboration. Modernization initiatives can be disruptive and can introduce significant changes to your organization. As such, it’s essential to keep all stakeholders informed and engaged throughout the process. You should listen to their concerns and feedback and incorporate them into your approach. 
  • You should also consider the long-term implications of modernization. Will the modernized capabilities still be relevant in a few years? Will they require further modernization down the road? Answering these questions before starting your modernization initiative ensures that your efforts are sustainable and beneficial in the long run. 

For a more comprehensive understanding of effective strategies to adopt when modernizing your legacy applications, read my previous blog on taking a lasting application modernization approach. 

Conclusion 

The success of application modernization is dependent on a well-planned strategy that emphasizes low-impact, early-stage concepts before addressing core and distinguishing features. By concentrating first on applications that have the least impact on your business, you can efficiently explore various techniques, mitigate risks, and fine-tune your approach. This cyclical and risk-averse process guarantees lasting, sustainable advantages.  

What Relevantz can do for you 

Relevantz can be the partner you need to help you along your application modernization and digital transformation journeys. With our business-first, outside-in modernization approach, we can help you rehost, replatform, refactor, rearchitect, rebuild, and replace your current enterprise systems, separate the applications from legacy infrastructure, modularize intermingled business processes, liberate data from legacy systems, and innovate new digital systems. 

And because our approach is iterative, your enterprise will be able to enjoy all the benefits of new information technologies, such as having the agility to adapt quickly to the demands of the marketplace, while keeping your legacy systems humming behind the scenes. 

Interested in kick-starting your modernization journey with a strategic and risk-averse approach?