5 Telltale Signs That It’s Time for Software System Modernization

On average, the life cycle of a software system is approximately five years, which means that when a system has been in place for six, your business is in danger. Of course, if you conduct proper maintenance an application may perform well for longer, but you’ll have to be ready to act fast when the system inevitably crashes at the worst possible moment. This is especially true when we talk about businesses with a long-established market whose dependence on the software is enormous and whose software was created years ago, drawing near to or even past its end-of-life date.

There are many compelling reasons that prevent companies from replacing an outdated system or modernizing it, such as the inability to disrupt business processes and the general complexity of modernization. However, let’s be honest with ourselves — legacy software issues can’t be ignored, as doing so is a one-way ticket to catastrophe.

Company stakeholders can moderate such situations or even prevent them from occurring in the first place. The only thing that needs to be done is to keep a finger on the pulse of the company’s software at all times. In this article we are going to reveal the threats inherent in using outdated technologies and show you five signs that indicate the need to plan software modernization or replacement immediately in order to save your business from unexpected crashes that can cause major damage.

1. The maintenance costs surpass the benefits of the software

Research by Spiceworks highlights the fact that IT budgets are growing year over year, while some organizations spend a shocking 70 to 90 percent of their IT budget on operating and maintaining outdated software. Therefore, while spending for support of end-of-life software is increasing, the software’s business value is decreasing, and there will come a time when costs surpass the system’s value. If you have crossed this line, you’re throwing money down the drain. That means it’s necessary to make a choice: to continue investing in outdated legacy software, or to gain additional business strengths by investing in horizontal and vertical expansion, personnel training, R&D, and so on.

2. Functionality gaps

Is your business the same today as it was 20 years ago? We are 99 percent sure it has changed, but the software often stays the same. If this is the case for your business, it’s likely that just a few crucial features are still topical for you, while the majority are no longer needed. Along with this, you may require additional features and use SaaS, so software costs are higher than they should be. As a result, functionality gaps negatively impact costs, productivity and the overall user experience.

3. Performance issues

Usually, most companies can survive having five minutes of downtime per year, which means that they must deal with any outage immediately so that their customers stay unaware. Disruptions and outages are often unexpected, and they tend to result in the loss of customers. A survey conducted by Acronis indicated that system downtime costs affected businesses US$366,363 each year. If you have faced such issues at least once, add this amount to the maintenance costs you incur for running your outdated software.

4. Zero mobility

Today, the variety of gadgets available to us is impressive. While 10 years ago people mostly used personal computers or laptops, today they’d rather trust a tablet, a smartphone or even a smartwatch to use any needed applications. Nonetheless, many legacy software systems can be accessed only through the mainframes within offices. It’s highly secure, but at the same time it’s highly inconvenient. Such systems make remote work impossible, not to mention using mobile and tablet features. Therefore, a lack of mobility means losing many opportunities, and you cannot afford to ignore the significant impact of mobile, both today and in the future.

5. Security threats

According to an Accenture Security Report, legacy software is one of the biggest threats to cyber security today. The problem is that software with old encryption algorithms can’t receive security patches, which exposes businesses’ data to multiple risks.

Read the full article on ModLogix

Originally published at https://modlogix.com on January 29, 2021.