Reengineering Legacy Software, Part 01 - The Business Advantage

What is Software Reengineering?

Software Reengineering is a systematic process of analyzing and modifying existing software to improve its quality, maintainability, adaptability or security. Software can also be reengineered to ensure compliance with relevant regulations.

Cost of maintaining legacy systems can grow over time depending on the complexity and size of the system, and the business. A study conducted by Gartner revealed that it could cost as much as 60% of the companies IT budget. A report by Forrester Research indicated that legacy systems can slow down IT innovation by up to 70%.

Outdated software can pose significant problems to organizations: from security vulnerabilities and performance issues to increasing maintenance cost and integration challenges.

Legacy Systems Are Expensive

So what are the costs associated with legacy or outdated systems and why should you initiate to modernize these applications.

Given below are direct and indirect costs associated with legacy software.

Performance Issues:

Modern applications are performance driven; they are more resource efficient and can handle larger workloads with ease. Older systems on the other hand may be slow, resource intensive and even unresponsive at times. This leads to lower user productivity and customer dissatisfaction. Customers would certainly switch to current systems if it's feasible and economical.

Maintenance and support costs:

Legacy systems require maintenance and support to keep them running efficiently. The company may be required to hire developers and support executives. Besides human resources, organizations may have to spend on infrastructure, hardware and software, and training to keep the legacy application from falling apart.

Integration costs:

Software has to evolve with the needs of the users, which rarely remains consistent. Applications need to have the capacity to be expandable by integrations with other systems. Old software, more often than not, may not be compatible with newer systems. A lot of resources have to be poured into integration tasks with legacy software.

Despite efforts, the initiative can lead to duplicated data, siloed information, and inefficient processes which in turn makes the system more difficult to maintain.

Security costs:

The Software landscape has been evolving rapidly. Keeping in pace with these developments are cyber threats, which have become more advanced and menacing. System security is often compared to an arms race where cyber security personnel constantly develop tools, applications and procedures to fight against hackers, who too are working to make their exploits even better.

Legacy systems are way more vulnerable to cyber attacks, as they may not have updated to protect valuable and sensitive data against such threats.

Data breaches and security incidents can prove costly to an organization. Furthermore, securing these systems with patches and updates could be more difficult and expensive in outdated systems than with modern applications.

Lost productivity:

Legacy systems, owing to their design and architecture can be difficult to maintain. It's rather impossible not to break some functionality while you're adding another. This nature of legacy system makes it a difficult beast to tame. This not only affects the productivity of the employees but also lowers their morale. As a result, this could lead to lost revenue, and decreased customer satisfaction.

Missed opportunities and stifled innovation:

In today's competitive market, it is vital for companies to quickly adapt to market changes and consumer demands. Inability to do so could result in lower revenue and could even be catastrophic for businesses.

Modern applications leverage architecture and development practices that help them to be agile to the changing demands of the market. Legacy applications are comparatively slow to adapt. They lack competitive advantage and can lose significant market share if pitted against a competitor whose applications are powered with modern technologies and driven by agile teams.

Introducing new features can be resource intensive and a burdensome task, and can put innovation on the backburner, hindering the growth of the organization.

Growing Technical Debt:

Technical debt refers to the implied cost of future work, by choosing a poor solution today to accelerate software delivery.

Let's understand this aspect clearly in relation to legacy systems. Legacy systems rely on old architecture and development practices, and maintaining these systems is a fairly arduous endeavor in itself. Software teams working on these systems often tend to implement temporary solutions to fasten project delivery. Quick fixes add to technical debt overtime affecting the application's overall reliability.

To sum up, legacy systems are expensive in the long run, and it's judicious to calculate the total cost of ownership and consider reengineering them.

The Business Benefits of Software Reengineering

Application reengineering is a critical and demanding business undertaking, but it has a wide range of benefits.

It reduces maintenance cost:

Reengineering legacy software reduces maintenance cost, as the reengineered code is restructured and made more modular, maintainable and easy to understand. It helps developers to implement new features efficiently, fix bugs quickly, which results in reduced cost of ownership.

Improved performance and scalability:

Outdated software can often struggle to handle increasing workloads as user demand increases. Reengineering can help developers identify bottlenecks, improve algorithms and database queries that leads to a more responsive and scalable system. The enhanced system improves user productivity and satisfaction.

Reduced risk of system failures and outages:

Application reengineering can help developers identify and address underlying issues in the outdated code and infrastructure. Thus reducing the chances of business disasters such as failures and costly downtime.

Enhanced security:

Legacy software can be susceptible to security threats and cyber attacks. Developers can implement necessary security protocols, encryption techniques, and access control mechanisms, that helps address vulnerabilities and protect sensitive data, prevent unauthorized access, and reduces risk of data breaches.

Improved compliance with regulations:

By reengineering the software, developers can update the code to meet the latest requirements and protect sensitive information. This can help organization to comply with current industry regulations and data privacy standards, avoiding legal issues, fines, and damage to the company reputation.

Extended application lifespan:

There is a chance possibility where the legacy software becomes extremely difficult to extend, upgrade, or even maintain. Software reengineering can extend the lifespan of these applications by modernizing the codebase and technologies, so that it can adapt to changing business needs. Reengineering legacy software can help businesses avoid investing in complete redevelopment and leverage their existing software investments.

Enhanced agility and innovation:

Software reengineering makes the codebase modular and offers flexibility to adapt to changing market conditions. It's easier to implement features, integration with new technologies with faster development cycles, enhancing the organization's agility and ability to innovate.

Improved employee productivity and customer loyalty:

Developers tend to be more productive and satisfied when they work with software that's well structured, written, and documented. Reengineered software is comparatively more easier to maintain and improve which leads to overall better team performance and increase employee morale.

Reengineering makes the application more user friendly, responsive and has the capacity to cater to user demands, which leads to customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Why Businesses avoid software reengineering efforts

Despite the apparent significant benefits, some businesses woefully avoid reengineering their existing software. Discussed below are some of the common reasons.

Cost:

Reengineering can be expensive and time intensive. It requires investing in resources, software and training. Businesses can be hesitant to make such investments as they may not be sure about the return on investment.

Resistance to change:

Businesses resist to change if they become comfortable with the current operations and functions. They may be completely unaware of the missed opportunity. They may also be overconfident in their current systems and believe they may not require reengineering. Especially if they haven't experienced major failures in the past.

Furthermore, the company may not feel the absolute urgency to reengineer their systems even if they're outdated and inefficient, procrastinating and delaying the project without valid reasons.

Lack of leadership support:

The senior management is responsible for initiating software reengineering, and the project may not take off without their support. This usually happens if they've not correctly calculated the true total cost of ownership and the possible negative impact of the legacy system on their business in the long run.

Fear of disrupting business operations:

At times, businesses may be quite aware of the need to reengineer their software, but may not do so out of the fear of disrupting business operations, impacting customers and affecting their bottom-line negatively.

Risk:

Reengineering is a major undertaking with the risk of failure if not managed carefully. It may lead to cost overruns, delays and even system failure if not done correctly. The business may be on the fence considering the risk to their reputation.

Lack of expertise:

Reengineering required an experienced team who are equipped with the skills and knowledge to successfully carry out the project. A lack of in-house experts may deter their confidence to go ahead.

Conclusion

Reengineering can be a valuable undertaking where the business benefits outweighs the risk by a great extent. The potential benefits such as easy maintainability, improved performance, enhances agility and reduced costs over time, can make reengineering a worthwhile investment.

In the next part, we'll go over the process of reengineering software. We discuss the steps, processes and its importance to your project success.

Agile Soft Systems has the necessary resources, expertise, and over a decade of experience, helping business to reengineer their legacy applications and modernize them. We employ cutting edge technology and agile practices to make your applications reliable and efficient.

Partner with us to de-risk your reengineering project and make it a grand success.

Please find the text — In the next part Software Reengineering Part 2: A Process Guide for Project Success