While being consistent is a good attribute for an organization, this principle doesn’t work with legacy systems as it could be bad for your organization. It could impede growth and affect productivity.
Effective communication is essential for the success of any business. Therefore, all organizations must ensure that all of their systems offer services that are relevant to customers in all senses. This is, however, difficult to achieve if the systems in place are obsolete and not up to date with modern technology. The difficult question that all organizations are faced with is, if to keep on using the existing systems or to purchase recent systems so as to improve the effectiveness of carrying out business operations?
The truth is that, most of the times you are better off with new systems. Thanks to factors like cloud computing, increasing costs, and changing end-user demands, many organizations are switching to the use of new systems. Here are some reasons why you also need to consider getting rid of legacy systems.
Maintenance can be costly
As systems get old, the cost of maintaining them can be too expensive. Even if your organization makes use of systems which are maintained by vendors, maintaining them will most likely cost too much. In many cases, Vendors increase the amount they charge on helping you to keep your systems in top condition as the systems age. Also, knowledge of the operation of such systems fade out with time and you may find yourself stuck with a problem, which might cause too much to get experts to resolve.
Simply put, as support expires and warranties end, costs increases, causing another expense in maintaining a legacy application.
Legacy systems are inflexible and immobile
More often than not, legacy systems do not offer flexibility. Most apps that work on this type of system are built around proprietary, single tools that have a specific programming language, operations, and management tools. Today, applications are designed in such a way that IT personnel can be pretty handy in numerous applications. Many applications have common tools and are programmed with similar languages, hence flexible. Legacy systems just don’t fit into this modern world.
The world is continuously developing mobile solutions in all fields. Mobile devices have transformed organizational computing. Although legacy applications can roughly be integrated on a mobile device with the use of technologies like VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure), it is difficult to do the same with large screens, keyboards, and mice. Besides, you don’t need to go through the stress of trying to make a legacy application functional on new mobile devices. Instead, you can easily deploy a more modern application.
The infrastructures are too complex and expensive
Obviously, old apps, in general, would require an environment that is technically old, to accommodate old operating systems, unique hardware, libraries, databases, etc. The same way that maintaining applications become increasingly expensive as they get older, the underlying legacy infrastructures also grow more expensive. However, modern applications don’t have this type of problem because they are cloud-based and designed to operate on a virtual network.
Also, most of the legacy applications were developed with the objective of serving huge businesses. Then, applications like ERP and CRM were the king when it comes to solving large business problems, they offered integration extensively and are preferred to the other tedious alternative of integration through several custom code. With new technologies like standardized APIs and service buses, integration of smaller applications is comparatively much easier. Hence, you can buy only what you need and quickly integrate it, rather than some complex legacy systems.
Cloud-based technologies are way cheaper
Many sectors that were once controlled by complex and costly legacy apps have now been totally revolutionized by cloud computing. An example is the customer relationship management (CRM) space through which companies use to manage and analyze customer interactions and data, and also build strong relationships with customers. With CRM, companies are able to offer credit card solutions. It also reduces the huge expenses spent on the balance sheet for management and eliminates the need for hiring consultants to help you out.
IT specialists retiring
Many companies working with a lot of legacy applications don’t have documentation. Rather, their operations are solely supported by experienced staff, which is a bad practice. IT workers are retiring and professionals who are younger are being inducted to the industry. The modern professionals are most likely not trained with old computer languages, which puts the whole operation of the organization in trouble. Since the knowledge of legacy apps is going to leave your company at some point, it is to your benefit to get rid of legacy systems as soon as possible.
Transitioning to new-age technology
Over the years, there has been development in technology and business itself. All the processes involved in the development, marketing, distribution and sales of products have evolved. Many companies are abandoning complex legacy systems and adopting modern ways. In fact, legacy phone systems are slowly getting obsolete, which makes the switch to IP necessary. As time flies by, getting spare parts of the obsolete system will become increasingly difficult, if not impossible. New VoIP systems are cost saving, more advanced and easy to use. All of the reasons mentioned above are the driving force behind the need to get rid of legacy systems.
At ELCOM Innovations, we offer telecommunication solutions that makes it easy to migrate from legacy systems to current and new age IP based infrastructure. Come talk to us and feel the difference.
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