3 Signs Your Business Is Ready for Application Modernization

Application modernization is vital for businesses to deliver better customer experiences and stay competitive in their respective markets. By updating outdated software applications, organizations will boost efficiency, security and agility. All good, right?

The challenge with application modernization is that it is often a time-consuming, manual process, as some of the processes businesses have employed for a decade or longer have remained the same — and are long overdue for change.

“Where do I begin?” is a common question I hear working with business leaders on their initial steps toward application modernization. So, recognizing a few key signs for when to begin your journey is paramount.

Here are three signs to let you know your business is ready for the essential benefits of app modernization.

The word “agility” signifies the ability to quickly adapt and respond to changing needs, which is a chief aim of application modernization. Making applications more agile means enabling faster development cycles, easier updates and smoother integration with new technologies that benefit all stakeholders.

An organization’s legacy systems are often obstacles in the way of app modernization, significantly stifling the ability to adapt to fast-changing customer demands. According to Gartner, 76% of organizations surveyed reported a struggle in innovating quickly due to legacy systems.

Using outdated systems, especially if many are in the equation, will lead to a lot of money being spent on patches, fixes and bugs, in addition to a workforce whose expertise is limited to working within these outdated systems.

If your organization is at the point where it can’t seize new market opportunities because it is saddled with day-to-day operational inefficiencies, this is a clear sign you’re ready for app modernization.

It should come as no surprise that with using outdated application stacks comes costly expenditure on maintaining them. According to an IDC report, 49% of surveyed firms attribute overspending on digital infrastructure to the cost of maintaining legacy systems, underscoring the need for improved agility.

With your IT budget, the goal is to gain a better position to invest in emerging technologies rather than remain entangled in a patch-management cycle with dying legacy systems.

Being on the cutting edge of innovation, or even taking steps to prioritize and modernize your most important applications, means letting go of legacy systems that waste unnecessary time and money in the long run.

Leveraging outdated applications equates to increased vulnerabilities that inevitably lead to data breaches. The last thing you want is your organization’s success and reputation to be stymied and permanently damaged by preventable security and compliance issues due to negligence and the inefficiencies of old systems.

Application security means designing, coding and configuring your applications to prevent and defend against cyberattacks, all while ensuring that applications meet data protection and privacy standards owed to your valuable customers.

Monolithic applications can slow down digital transformation, making it impossible to adapt to changing customer expectations. Our Strategic Application Modernization Assessment (SAMA) is a fully automated, proprietary tool that analyzes your organization's application portfolio based on age, security and complexity issues.

SAMA’s scanning capability recognizes over 40 programming languages and can analyze thousands of applications to deliver valuable metrics on application security, complexity, continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) and more in two to three weeks versus 12 to 18 months when performed manually.

When an insurance company came to us with 3,000 applications across three different continents that needed assessment, we used SAMA to provide analysis for security issues, saving the company the hassle of countless phone calls and emails. We now perform quarterly scans for them, allowing them to meet real-world compliance for their security standards to safeguard customers’ sensitive information.

At CDW, we work with you to transform efficiency through modern applications, helping you solve business problems on any timeline. Visit our SAMA page for more information.