Antiques are valuable but not if it’s your technology platform

While antiques are valued for age and history, a modern business tech platform shouldn’t be a historical artifact. Holding on to an aging mainframe can cost dearly in many ways from maintenance costs to not delivering business requirements. According to Forrester, 75% of businesses say that their current platforms are not meeting their needs.

Rigid, inflexible infrastructures and unreliable performance drive up maintenance costs and slow down business performance. Legacy systems can mean manual interventions, expensive maintenance, integration roadblocks, compliance issues, and weak security. While the platform may be functional for now, outdated platforms cannot keep up with the leaps in technology, changing user expectations, and the demands of today’s fast-moving business.

There is one way to stay on top of the game: platform modernization. Let go of what’s limiting enterprise scalability and create a robust foundation to leverage new and innovative tech.

Migrating or modernizing your platform at the right time can save millions. A recent IDC survey found that legacy applications can cost businesses up to 10-15% more per year in maintenance costs alone. Just think about how that 15% can be reinvested in other areas.

While a total platform overhaul is costly, time consuming and likely unrealistic, Ascendion has an approach that focuses on specific transformation pillars. The Ascendion MMR framework (Modularize, Modernize, Refactor) helps enterprises become more digitally agile and future proof their systems. We focus on transformation pillars like adopting cloud-native platforms, capitalizing on the power of APIs, embracing Agile, working DevOps, and using POD models.

Modularize to uncover locked potential

A modularization approach separates the platform into components to modify/modernize. Modularization uses and preserves business logic and user experience, so users interact with the system in the same ways. Reusing module variants across multiple configurations combines volumes at the module level and achieves economies of scale without limiting or rationalizing product offerings. Ascendion’s software engineers assess needs and time needed. In one case, we helped a global technology corporation with its automation platform and legacy data integration, achieving 100% data digitization with affiliates and saving $3 million in the process.

Modernize for multiple benefits

Think of platform modernization as a regular upgrade to keep things humming, just like the system upgrade for your smartphone. Platform upgrades result in reduced costs, increased agility, faster time to market, improved security, and optimized cloud operations. One example: For an education solutions provider, Ascendion modernized the data platform for a student analytics hub. The client hit a 60% faster time to market, while seeing a 45% drop in operating expenses.

Refactor for fresh code

Legacy code becomes slow and stale over time. Code restructure and optimization can improve platform productivity, remove technical debt, and improve nonfunctional attributes. The code can then be rearchitected to shift to a new application later, or rebuilt while preserving scope and specifications. For a U.S. sports retailer, Ascendion revolutionized their omni-channel platform for seamless shopping. As a result, the retailer saw a 70% improvement of in-store product availability while also reducing costs by 40%.

Overall, an incremental modernization approach reduces risk with more flexibility and a lower cost outlay.

Maximize your value

At Ascendion, we know business success depends on keeping pace with ever-changing needs, shifting expectations, and emerging technologies. We maximize the value of your legacy solutions by bringing a mix of software engineering experts, advanced technology including applied AI, and comprehensive processes. Modernize to achieve your business goals more quickly-and Ascendion will get you there.