Software modernizations, tricky or not?

Tips to modernize your legacy software

Yonder will host a series of videos on modernizing your legacy software. In the first of the series, Daniel Lar and Mihai Buhai discuss the business and operational aspect of software modernizations. In future talks, Daniel sits down with Remus Pereni to go into the technical aspects of modernizations.

Many software product companies have legacy software, full of domain data and business logic, yet quickly becoming outdated in the way that their users want to work with the software. Quite often these solutions were built when there was only one way to host them: on-premise. Now there are multiple infrastructure solutions giving users much more flexibility in where, how, and when they want to use the software. And providing companies new business models to run their businesses. The new infrastructures also open the doors to new types of releases, frequent and less intrusive, which means another step in becoming more user-friendly and thus gaining higher customer satisfaction. And this again leads to another change, the architecture of the solution. These days all new software products are developed with changing environments in mind: new devices, rapid changes, and new distribution models. Whereas the older, rock solid and therefore quite immovable solutions, were not designed to be agile and flexible.

Tips for Software Modernizations

So what can you do when you are considering modernizing your software? Here are some Yonder tips that we learned from the modernization engagements we have done for our customers.

1. Place your customers center stage
   It is critical to onboard your customers. Don’t take off on a modernization journey without their involvement. They will appreciate it, they can help you define your modernized solution, validate the updated designs, and they could even co-fund the modernization. They work with your solution and they naturally know the most used features of the application. So keep your customers happy and give them a smooth transition. Have a fallback scenario which gives the users the comfort of having a product to go back to if needed.
2. Have a migration strategy
   You need to have a strategy, which is something where Yonder can help. We start by understanding why you are modernizing. Then we can help with a solid plan. Yonder has the expertise and knows the best practices. We help to structure the teams, setting the milestones and how to set up the communication.
3. Incorporate your lessons learned
   If you are a software product company, then you may not have the benefit of lessons learned. But at Yonder we have run many such projects and have learned lessons from past engagements which help us to improve future modernizations continuously. So we can help with management, technical, and development improvements even before you have started your modernization.
4. Don’t forget your existing application and customers
   We have found that the best way to do this is to have two separately managed teams. One focusing entirely on the modernization product and one completely dedicated to the continuation of the existing product (and customers) as it will continue for some time until you decide the phase-out moment.

Yonder Talks Video – Software Modernizations

So watch Daniel and Mihai discuss ‘Modernizations’ in our Yonder Talks video. In the future, we will also look at the technical aspects of modernizations. If you have questions, are considering a modernization, want to discuss the subject further, or would like to get in touch with us, please click the button and leave us a message.