Does Digital Transformation mean getting rid of legacy?
Sort By:
Oldest
President | CIO | Digital Transformation | Author in Software6 years ago
Not necessarily. It depends on your definition of legacy, but more important, is the technology or business process labeled as 'legacy' inhibiting the company's strategic plans. If the legacy is creating a poor customer experience, is difficult to upgrade, can't easily be integrated with other applications or data sources, is exhibiting poor performance, requires lots of people to support, or has risky security holes then there probably is good reason/rational to want to get rid of it.Even if the answer is yes, then organizations can't replace all their legacy issues at once. It requires roadmapping. More often than not, it requires maintaining legacy systems for sometime.There are cases where legacy isn't bad or needs to be replaced. If the technology is stable, does its job well, and is not a barrier to business needs then there's little reason to get rid of it.CEO in Services (non-Government)4 years ago
I concur, Comes down to your organizations definition of Legacy Systems. Often this a reference too outdated, antiquated systems. In all fairness there are many Mainframe, Legacy (labeled) systems in current use. Offering advanced, emerging technical innovations. One persons trash, is another persons(industry/vertical’s) technical treasures. 🏴☠️
Chief Security Officer in Software6 years ago
Agree with Isaac. Most organizations can't pivot on a dime so legacy doesn't go away overnight just because you want to transform to digital. Instead your strategy becomes digital first and therefore if/until you can move legacy to digital or decommission it, legacy will be around for a while.CTO in Software6 years ago
MyPOV - Legacy as a tag is not motivating. Typically it is still revenue generating, so extremely vital to the bottom line. Then the conversations shifts to being more inclusive on how to migrate to the next phase of the company and transformation. CTO in Software6 years ago
Digital transformation typically involves a change in thinking, processes/methods/tools, with the encouragement of innovation and new business models, incorporating digitization of assets, leading to newer workflows/metrics and an increased use of technology to improve the experience of your organisation’s employees, customers, suppliers, partners and stakeholders. This may lead to newer AI/ML engines being leveraged, or newer algorithmic systems occurring which may still have legacy systems, but likely has newer Operational agility incorporated. As such non-strategic, inefficient legacy systems slowly will get transformed...Principal | CMTO, Ekspansiv in Services (non-Government)6 years ago
Agree with the comments above...your question is a bit generic though. Do you mean legacy email systems? Databases? ERP tools? First define what you "think" is legacy. Then understand your technology debt. It's hard to define legacy without first understanding your technology debt, from there, you can approach the above issues.