Digital transformation is key to staying competitive amongst top enterprises. To get in on the action, you’ll need to modernize your existing legacy systems first. No-code can help.
The era of digital transformation is here! The global digital transformation market is expected to grow to a staggering $1,009.8 billion by 2025, and digital organizations stand to contribute to over 50% of the global GDP by 2023. That’s about $53.3 trillion! Most modern enterprises today (89% in fact) plan to adopt, or have already adopted, a digital-first business strategy.
Embarking on a digital transformation can help your enterprise increase efficiency, foster innovation, and appeal to the next generation of users. If you want to tap into this industry-wide shift, you have to get started as soon as possible. But first, you have to come to terms with your enterprise’s past, and that means legacy systems. Let’s unpack that a little bit more.
The link between digital transformation & legacy modernization
The question that drives every digital transformation initiative is simple: “How do I make my enterprise more modern?” You need to increase business agility, build high-quality applications faster, revamp how you handle data, and so much more. Before you can do any of that, you have to figure out what to do with your existing legacy systems.
Legacy systems are outdated software programs still in use by an enterprise, and it doesn’t take very long for something to become legacy. In fact, code becomes legacy code as soon as you create it, and this can hinder your digital transformation efforts in numerous ways:
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Maintenance costs and technical debt: Companies in the United States spent nearly $600 billion in 2018 on legacy maintenance alone and, on average, tech teams devote up to three-quarters of their development budget to legacy maintenance! Out of an analysis of 160 organizations, the average app consisting of 300,000 lines of code came with more than one million dollars worth of technical debt, coming out to $3.61 per code line. Technical debt only gets harder to tackle over time and prevents you from going digital quickly and efficiently.
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Reduced operational efficiency: Many legacy systems don’t get along, making it difficult to quickly develop new features or applications. Plus, buggy systems are always crashing and giving your team even more work to do. If your employees spend all day chipping away at buggy programs and legacy maintenance, they won’t have the time or energy left to devote to digital transformation.
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Security vulnerabilities: Legacy systems as young as five years old are more susceptible to malware attacks, data breaches, and other vulnerabilities. Legacy systems are also usually filled with dead code, and removing it could lead to even more bugs and unpatched security issues. If your tech stack’s security issues aren’t resolved before you begin your digital transformation, those same issues can plague the new applications you build.
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Cost of opportunity: One of the primary goals of digital transformation is to revamp your business, keep up with shifting consumer trends and demands, and foster innovation. For all of the reasons mentioned above (and more!), maintaining legacy systems means you have less time and energy available to pursue new opportunities as they arise.
Out of an analysis of 160 organizations, the average app consisting of 300,000 lines of code came with more than one million dollars worth of technical debt, coming out to $3.61 per code line.
The only way to embark on a successful digital transformation is to avoid repeating patterns of the past, especially when it comes to creating new legacy systems. Unfortunately, there’s no way to do this with code. Luckily, no-code can help!
Managing modernization with Unqork
Unqork can help you make meaningful steps toward digital transformation by making it easy to modernize your legacy systems. When you do away with code, you no longer have to worry about creating more legacy as you develop applications. By breaking monoliths down into microservices and replacing legacy systems altogether, it becomes faster and easier to transition to a code-free ecosystem. Once you’ve transitioned to a no-code system consisting of smaller and more manageable components, all future digital transformation efforts will be much easier to accomplish!
Watch our recent webinar on achieving legacy system modernization in insurance.
If the systems you have in place work well enough for now, you might want to take a modular approach. The Unqork platform can accommodate that as well! By building no-code extensions, you can easily integrate and extend existing legacy architecture with modern systems. Plus, connected legacy integrations can be configured entirely without code. You can also build scalable architectures that support and upgrade existing legacy systems until they’ve all been replaced.
No matter how you choose to tackle your legacy systems, modernizing them as quickly as possible is key to starting your digital transformation on the right foot. With Unqork, legacy modernization is faster and easier than ever. We can help you update or do away with your legacy systems, tackle your technical debt, and ensure your organization can focus on projects that push your business forward. Without your past legacy systems dragging you behind, nothing is in your way!
To learn more about the Unqork platform, you can request a personalized demonstration with one of our in-house experts today. For more in the world of no-code, sign up for the Unqork newsletter.
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