Transforming Legacy Systems is the Need of the Hour

Before we discuss Legacy Systems. Enterprise applications refer to integrated computerized systems that operate all the phases within an enterprise’s workflow. A large software system platform, these are specially designed to facilitate work functions in corporate environments such as large businesses or governments. Put simply, they help in the coordination and facilitation of work across departments, throughout the organization. Enterprise applications fuse the core business processes, operating them in real-time based on a single software architecture on a client/server platform. These applications are known for their complexity and are scalable, component-based, and most importantly, mission-critical.

Here are some examples –

• HR management portals
• Warehousing software
• Customer relationship management systems
• Intranet sites
• Enterprise resource planning software

Now, What Qualifies as a Legacy System?

A legacy system can be a software application, a computer system, or a process or technology that is about to turn obsolete or already has. Age is not the only parameter to define a legacy system. It could refer to a system’s inability to meet organizational needs or discontinued vendor support. As an instance, a manufacturing unit’s software running on MS-DOS can be termed as a legacy.
Legacy systems usually do not receive tech support which makes them complicated to maintain. They’re incompatible with newer technologies which seriously limits the scope of enhancing their functionality.

Yet, for varying reasons, enterprises continue to make do with them. Not surprisingly then, legacy systems are all over the place, be it healthcare, telecommunication, government services, banks, transportation, and more.

And yet, organizations continue using legacy systems

Without a doubt, legacy applications form the backbone supporting the workflow within organizations for years or even decades. However, this is what holds the business back from moving on with the times in terms of adopting newer technologies and benefitting its users.

Enterprise software that is reliant on aging or obsolete programming languages results in escalating maintenance costs. Older APIs and services may no longer be supported as well. After a point, even knowledgeable developers can find it increasingly difficult to maintain these applications.

Over time it’s natural for businesses to evolve as well. The proliferation of mobiles and cloud-based applications has massively transformed the way people work, thus creating novel workflows as a consequence. Not surprisingly, legacy apps are a misfit in this environment made up of constantly evolving technologies and user behavior.

Consider a scenario as simple as this – sales agents involved in fieldwork today naturally expect to be using their mobile phones to view and manage their work. However, with their legacy application not having a mobile version, they would be forced to carry their laptops everywhere to access it. Now, it may cause further inefficiency when the said app isn’t web-based which means that they can’t update inputs in real-time and have to make notes to be updated later.

All said and done, it’s apparent that legacy systems call for an immediate upgrade. However, for a varying range of reasons, companies continue to make do with legacy systems. These may include:

• “Why fix something that isn’t broken?”
• The complexity of the system makes the stakeholders assume that it would be impossible to even define the scope of the upgrade.
• Assumptions, again, about the redesign being too costly or overwhelming.
• The risk of tampering with a system that was custom-made for specific functionality and performance.
• The fear of key data being lost or corrupted.
• It’s rare that a legacy system is thoroughly documented. Stakeholders assuming that a redesign involves making a replica with some visual enhancements tend to be skeptical

Legacy applications often form the bedrock of workflow operations in companies. In many cases, it so happens that companies choose to incrementally enhance these systems over a period of several years. This renders the application to become exceedingly complex and nearly impossible to replicate or replace. As a result, it turns out that these companies become prisoners of their legacy systems over time.

Risks of sticking with legacy systems

• Their incompatibility with the latest browsers, versions of operating systems, languages, and new cloud- or web-based technologies make legacy systems unstable, hard to use, and prone to slowdowns or worse, crashes.
• Over time, they tend to be built based on different programming languages and managed by different technicians, possibly resulting in incomplete documentation regarding updates.
• This intermittent documentation and lack of technical support over time make the system susceptible to security breaches.
• It hardly makes sense to expect legacy systems to run forever and expect them to steadfastly support business goals. As the years pass, these systems bleed the company by their high rate of failure and lack of security and support, thus reducing efficiency and productivity.

How to Deal With Legacy Systems

It’s a given that a legacy system requires an immediate do-over. How should the stakeholders go about it is a whole different question altogether.
At the preliminary level, enterprises can have three basic options –

• Replacing the existing system
• Continue to enhance the existing one
• Source an external product

Replacing the Existing System

Replacing a mission-critical legacy system can lead to a major shake-up in the way the business functions and the way the users go about performing their daily routine tasks. Here are a few scenarios in which a replacement would seem justifiable –

• When the existing technology is causing the company’s bottom line to nosedive because it’s simply not equipped to serve contemporary needs of the business.
• It is costlier to maintain than replace.
• It is so obsolete that it is hard to find trained staff for its upkeep.

With all these conditions in place, it makes sense to replace the existing system with a newer, contemporary solution. That said, businesses that decide to opt for a replacement have to make appropriate provisions for project management, technical resources, communications and change management, executive sponsorship and committed funding.

Replacing a legacy system is never an easy decision to make, given that it usually is a behemoth that has controlled the company’s operations over the years or even over decades. Doing so involves careful risk analysis and a well chalked out plan for transition and adoption.

However, several compelling reasons may push companies to go for a radical change, especially when the existing system ceases being a benefit and becomes an expensive burden to carry.

Continue Enhancing the Existing System

A lesser-radical solution to combat a legacy system would be to enhance the existing system and keep the pain of a full-blown replacement at bay at least temporarily. A common strategy is to offload its maintenance to a specialized design and development agency. Outsourcing the system’s upkeep makes sense as these agencies harbor the expertise to upgrade near-obsolete software and make it more accessible to web, cloud, or mobile technologies.

A point to note is that enhancing a legacy system can only go as far as adding a few more years to its functioning. Depending upon the intricacies and complexities, the company needs to formulate a detailed plan to either keep extending the enhancements or going for a replacement.

Source an External Product

Software as a Service (SaaS) is an option often considered by companies looking to replace their legacy system and yet limit their development and maintenance budget. In case they manage to find an off-the-shelf product that matches about 85% of their existing functionality, it makes sense to seriously consider it. This does not mean that buying a SaaS product makes for a seamless transition; CIOs, in fact, would be tasked with addressing the new system’s functional gaps, data migration and security, and integration with other applications as needed.

When would a SaaS security solution be a no-no? For massive-scale multinational companies with thousands of users, especially if the provider levies per-user charges or isn’t flexible enough to accommodate their needs. Companies operating in mission-critical systems like healthcare or aviation, for instance, would always hesitate to opt for these solutions. Therefore, before choosing a product it is essential to assess its scalability, functionality, and flexibility to integrate with existing systems.

Enter Enterprise UX

Enterprise UX is an all-inclusive term referring to the designing of software used internally by a business – software that’s used by employees, not consumers.
The way we look at enterprise UX is: creating seamless software handled by thousands of users globally across sectors as a part of their jobs.

What does this translate to? Empowering healthcare professionals to make accurate diagnoses using well-designed EMRs. Helping expand the outreach of government-provided health insurance. Or even letting factory clerks ensure that their goods are warehoused optimally, and many more.

Enterprise software is highly specialized and complex. These are massive products that experts use for several hours every day to get critical work done.

Enterprise UX involves creating software that facilitates an organization’s primary goals. Think of it like this – an automobile manufacturer may design the best-performing vehicles, but it would impact production if their QA is bogged down by legacy software.

UX design is the enabler for enterprises, helping them perform the way they were founded to do.

Enterprise technology does not have to be difficult. People don’t deserve to feel irritated while they’re performing everyday tasks like writing quotations or devising delivery schedules. It only does more damage than good. We believe that workplace software needs to get the work done as easily and seamlessly as booking a cab or ordering food.

Employees are human – the very ones using Evernote to list their groceries, Mint to create a budget for them, and Pinterest to plan a recipe based on them. However, it’s a whole different story when these very people come to work and make do with applications that complicate basic things like importing a Word doc or using a calculator.

The sheer scale of enterprise software amplifies good and bad design alike. Minor inefficiencies in large scale software products lead to increased costs that manifest via user frustration and wasted time.

Poor design leads to added costs in training employees, excessive documentation explaining interactions, and a perpetual need to seek technical assistance from the vendor. Terrible user experience creates issues that are incremental and cumulative. To put it lightly, flawed UX bleeds the company’s finances over time.

Enterprise User Experience as a Competitive Advantage

“Investment in UX is often the difference between businesses that grow and those that sputter.” – Roman Nurik, designer and design advocate, Google
One look at the statistics, and it’s apparent that investing in UX design scores financial wins for companies across sizes and industries. A 2016 design study conducted on 408 participating companies discovered that increased focus and investments in design resulted in multifold advantages – including increased sales, higher customer retention and engagement, and faster movement through product cycles.

All this was merely the result of placing the user and UX design at the core of their business development plans.

The best user experience hits the sweet spot between user needs and business goals. By helping users accomplish their jobs with ease and finesse, they end up serving the needs and goals of the business in the best possible manner.

Let’s say that a UX design sprint has helped optimize a task. What once took 5 minutes to complete is now done in 2.5 minutes, which results in an increase in productivity by 100%. As basic as this may seem, it’s still true that design-driven companies outperformed the S&P average by 228% over the last ten years.

Lowered Support Costs

A well-designed application works smoothly without the intermittent need of tech support. It also helps negate the need to spend on training and documentation, reducing the stress on the employees and the bottom line.

A well-designed product experience means that the users need little to no help in going about their tasks. It’s hardly fair to presume that every tech tool needs a dedicated service team working full time in this day and age.

Increased Efficiency and Productivity

Good UX boosts productivity – which can be measured in terms of hours and costs saved to complete day-to-day tasks. It helps minimize the time that’s otherwise utilized in reworking features and performing redundant work. Employees end up saving time, and can, therefore, engage in productive activities like business generation and other important projects.

“Design Unicorns” is a term used to describe companies with the highest level of investment in design. These design unicorns recorded an increase in sales by a considerable 75%, as compared to those that were less invested in UX (but were still “design-centric”) who had an increase of 60%.

Reduces Development Time

An estimated 50% of technical do-overs are all about fixing avoidable mistakes – like erroneous assumptions of user behavior leading to confusing navigation.

The input of a UX designer reduces the number of time developers has to re-work a product by up to 50% and reduces development time overall by between 33% and 50% by improving decision-making and helping to prioritize development tasks.

“The value of UX is not wasting time and money developing the wrong solution.” – Jeff Humble, lead UX designer, CareerFoundry

Employee Retention

When employees are given beautiful and intuitive tools to work with, it naturally makes them better, more committed performers. In this world with exorbitant talent acquisition costs, it is a win-win to retain valuable employees for long.

With millennials being the largest age demographic of employees in the United States, it goes without saying that this is a group that expects technological finesse in all walks of their everyday life. And yet, 71% of these working for enterprises report being unhappy with the collaboration tools available to them. Decision-makers and managers are now compelled to improve the UX of their internal systems or risk alienating the very group that would be building their company’s future. The result? Loss of talent, increased expenses caused by employee turnover, and an overall competitive disadvantage.

It is unfair to propagate the concept of complex SaaS products. Instead, all efforts should be invested in making workplace tools that are easy to use and efficient in function. Availing the services of an experienced team of UX professionals ensures quality user experiences that translate to business success. By avoiding technical and UX debts, the product performs optimally and frees users of the strain. Having a dedicated UX team in place enables the right decision making, which ultimately boils down to savings in terms of time and money in the best interests of the business.

More Resources:

4 Superpowers of Every Designer

Legacy Lift Off in the Age of Cloud

How to Design a CRM System? 5 Actionable Tips on CRM Design