Looking to Modernize Your Software Portfolio? Here’s a 5-Step Guide

A leading automaker, created a unified platform for its 124 plants, 500 warehouses, and 1,500 suppliers. This enabled real-time consolidation of data from all its machines and systems, tracking logistics using advanced analytics tools and providing insights on shop-floor processes. This is expected to effect a reduction in factory costs of 30 percent by 2025 and pave the way for innovation within the manufacturer’s partners, according to a McKinsey report.

Businesses aiming to grow rapidly today are looking at modernizing their software portfolio and by migrating to the cloud. Apart from cost control, this will also provide businesses with:

• Flexibility to scale up or down based on need
• Meeting customer expectations
• Improving productivity and efficiency
• Effecting innovations faster

However, the step to modernize is not straightforward and requires a strategy to ensure success. For instance, a bank that had initiated a business-led agile transformation realized that it was unable to scale up due to a lack of a strategy. It approached BCG to define its cloud objectives and principles, create a business case for cloud and draft a roadmap for cloud migration. As a result, the bank was able to realize value through better time-to-market for cloud-based applications; enhanced productivity of engineers; and a significant lowering of IT costs.

The 5-Steps to Modernization 

Businesses running legacy systems are realizing that their systems are fast becoming obsolete and provide limited value. If not taken up at an organization level with a clear scope and focus, their modernization efforts can become isolated and create silos within the organization, slow down the pace of growth and leave the company struggling to keep pace with the competition.

But modernization is not just about migrating to the cloud. It is also about knowing what to modernize, what to retain and what to scrap completely. Digitech Labs enables software portfolio modernization for its customers across segments such as manufacturing and retail, based on industry best practices that include:

1. Creating a Business Case: While application modernization is inevitable, for the transformation to be successful, it is essential to establish the goals and create a strategy that aligns with the objectives. Prioritizing goals based on its criticality for the organization is essential to give direction and enhance the value of the effort. Scope it out to help identify the pace, the functions and the apps that need to be modernized on priority.
2. Evaluating Existing Systems and Assessing Modernization Options: Assess the existing assets and list down the mission-critical ones, detailing their functions, challenges and opportunities for scaling, performance, security and reliability. This can help with identifying assets that can be invested in and linking them to modernization goals and priorities to the expected outcomes of the project. Having identified opportunities and challenges, the next step is to assess modernization options based on risk, such as:

• Making data and functions as API services by encapsulating them
• Rehosting the application component on other infrastructure without modifications
• Migrating to a new runtime platform with minimal changes to the code
• Refactoring the code by eliminating technical debt and improving nonfunctional attributes
• Rearchitecting the code by shifting it to a new application architecture to leverage new and better capabilities
• Rewriting or redesigning the application component afresh without changing its scope or specifications.
• Replacing the existing application component completely incorporating new requirements

3. Assigning Responsibilities: Having identified the best fit approach, which would most probably be a mix of the different options, it next requires aligning the team to the modernization efforts. Transformation is not just about technology but also requires a cultural change. Assign responsibilities with command at the granular level to ensure a holistic impact on the ecosystem, encompassing people, process and technology. Having the right team with the required skill sets and approach to modern application development is also essential to ensure the success of the transformation process.
4. Creating a Plan and a Roadmap: A plan is essential to approach the transformation process within budget, on time and to ensure success. A roadmap helps build-in scalability and flexibility to protect investments and keep pace with organizational growth quickly.
5. Measuring and Reviewing Application Performance: Monitoring infrastructure and application performance at the code level is essential to identify any issues that can affect end-user performance or operational continuity. These could be at the code level, in the network, database, cloud environment or the servers. Measuring and reviewing performance also helps assess the impact of modernization on enhancing the functionality of the application, optimizing the IT environment and identifying areas for further optimization.

Digitech Labs — A Consultative Approach

Digitech Labs, a leading software solution provider, approaches every project and client differently, tailoring bespoke solutions based on their individual needs. For software portfolio modernization, we incorporate the best practices and work closely with our clients, finding the ideal fit and creating a roadmap for the future. Rather than taking a technology-first approach, we first identify the areas of improvement and then craft the ideal solution based on the requirement.

Our approach encompasses:

• Hybrid cloud architecture design
• Choosing the right cloud service provider
• Optimizing applications for the cloud
• Migration assistance and Managed services

To know more about how Digitech can help with your cloud migration, contact us now.