Learn how Digibee’s seamless integration solution for GoPro transformed their workflows.
GoPro’s Successful Partnership with Digibee
Language: English
What is a Legacy System and Why is Everyone So Worried About Them?
Are legacy systems really the end of the world? For many companies, they are business-critical technologies that keep operations humming and revenue flowing. But for all the bad press they get, you might think they’re set to be the downfall of business as we know it.
Are they? Not necessarily. Can they be? Absolutely.
But to fully understand what legacy systems are and why everyone is so concerned about them, we’ll have to dig a little deeper. This post will look at what a legacy system is, provide some examples, and examine the value, risks, and challenges associated with them.
Before we can discuss the risks and challenges associated with a legacy system, we have to establish what we’re talking about. It’s surprisingly difficult to find a widely accepted definition of legacy systems – which can make it challenging to determine if it’s an issue at your organization.
>> Book a personalized demo with our team of experts and see how Digibee’s iPaaS will bring efficiency to your business.
What is a Legacy System?
Legacy systems include computer systems, programming languages, applications, processes, or hardware that are:
- Inefficient to support or maintain
- Based on outdated technology
- Not compatible with more modern technical solutions
- Typically no longer available for purchase
- Often essential for day-to-day operations (more on this later)
Pro Tip: Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that a system or tool isn’t “legacy” because it’s only a few years old. Any technology that fits the above criteria is considered a legacy system.
Legacy Technology Examples and Use Cases
Legacy systems are everywhere. Any business that existed before fully-digital companies began emerging has had to – or will have to – update older systems if they want to compete in today’s digital space. Aging infrastructure and outdated technology comes in all shapes and sizes, but here are four more well-known legacy technology examples:
1. On-Premise SharePoint
Microsoft has announced the end of life for its 2013, 2016, and 2019 SharePoint Servers, with the final lights set to go out in July 2026. Research suggests that a significant percentage of finance, government, healthcare, and manufacturing organizations in North America are still using this tool – and many have no plans to migrate to something else.
Once considered ground-breaking, the on-premise version of SharePoint has become challenging (and expensive) to customize. It doesn’t scale well and lacks many reporting and oversight capabilities that are now considered standard.
2. COBOL
If you’re connected to the financial sector, you’ve probably been hearing arguments about COBOL for at least a decade. This programming language has been around for over 60 years and powers billions of ATM and credit card transactions annually.
COBOL’s age is not the issue. Skilled developers are already in short supply, and those with the expertise to translate COBOL code into more widely used modern languages are even more scarce. Even experienced developers can find it challenging to translate COBOL because of the unorthodox way it uses some standard coding statements.
3. SAP’s On-Premise ERP
Like SharePoint, SAP has announced plans to sunset support for its on-premise ERP in 2027. The existing model requires companies still using it to invest heavily in the development and maintenance of customized code to adapt it to today’s business processes.
91% of SAP users say they are dependent on custom code, and 90% of the code in use falls somewhere between “important” and “extremely critical.” The costs to keep using the tool are already high and will only increase as new technologies and trends emerge.
4. Blackberry Phones
There was a time when 43% of smartphones in the US were Blackberries. Although the brand’s downfall was swift when it failed to adapt to changing consumer expectations driven by new models from Apple and Samsung, the company only finally announced the end of support for its operating system in January 2022.
Limits on Blackberry hardware and the company’s refusal to embrace tools that customers wanted – think keyboard in place of touch screen – cost the company market share and ultimately made the once-iconic phones obsolete.
Why Do Businesses Use Legacy Tech?
The need to replace systems that are outdated, challenging to support, and inefficient to maintain and use may seem obvious. So why do businesses resist legacy system integration and hold on to platforms and tools like the legacy technology examples listed above?
There are a number of reasons:
- “It still works!”
This is a common refrain among executives who resist digital transformation in favor of the tools they know and trust. It can be hard to recognize (or justify) the need to overhaul major systems when the existing solution – which employees are used to – appears to be getting the job done.
- “We can’t afford to change!”
Balancing revenue and costs is always a consideration. The price to upgrade, or worse, replace, business-critical tech is often high. In many cases, companies have invested substantially in existing systems, so bearing a slow rise in maintenance costs may seem preferable to scrapping it all and starting fresh.
- “Changing will disrupt operations!”
Legacy systems often play a vital role in day-to-day operations, so the prospect of shifting to a new solution (whose reliability is unknown) can be daunting. If sticking with older tech might be disruptive eventually, companies may take their chances rather than endangering operational continuity with a major change.
“Replacing legacy applications and systems with systems based on new and different technologies is one of the information systems (IS) professional’s most significant challenges. As enterprises upgrade or change their technologies, they must ensure compatibility with old systems and data formats that are still in use.”
Gartner
Legacy System Risks and Challenges
Concerns about transitioning away from legacy systems are not unfounded, but the risks of sticking with outdated architecture – however “tried and true” it may be – are not inconsequential either.
Businesses that continue to rely on legacy technology will see problems related to:
- Maintenance
The cost of maintaining outdated systems will only rise as time goes on, support is discontinued, and fewer IT experts with the skills to keep legacy systems working – and connected to more modern tools – are available.
- Performance
The speed at which technology evolves is increasing exponentially. Legacy systems that don’t fail outright still won’t be able to keep pace with rising standards and rapid changes to market trends and consumer demands.
- Integration
The pandemic only accelerated an existing shift to doing business online, and a dependence on legacy systems can hamper digital transformation efforts and make adopting new solutions more challenging.
- User Experience
Reliance on aging or outdated platforms can negatively affect the experience you offer your customers. And the brand loyalty you’ve built can only carry you so far when you can’t meet expectations.
Digibee Can Help
Digibee’s innovative low-code enterprise integration platform-as-a-service removes the roadblocks legacy systems put in the way of your company’s growth and success.
Our reusable integrations let even junior developers connect legacy systems to new technologies and tools to modernize your architecture and accelerate digital transformation without downtime or disruption to your operations. Book a customized demo and discover the Digibee difference for yourself today.
Navigating Legacy System Migration and Digital Transformation | Podcast Episode 13
Interview with engineering leader Chris Cortese to discuss topics including legacy migration, digital transformation, customer engagement, and lessons learned.
Easily Connect the Dots Between Build, Run, and Monitor with Digibee’s Intuitive iPaaS Platform
Complex Problems = Complex Solutions.
Trying to work out all your integration business use cases is intense, and trying to get a full picture of all the platforms you need to connect to is no easier, we get it. To make sure the integration itself doesn’t add to the complexity your team faces, we’ve worked hard to create the most elegant and straightforward integration platform possible (without sacrificing the ability to adapt to tough or unique problems, we promise!).
At Digibee we have taken a full lifecycle approach to guide your team through Building, Running, and Monitoring your integrations in a way that is intuitive and helps you “connect the dots” to see the big picture of how your integration is working in near real-time. We also understand that every company is structured a little differently, so versatility is a core attribute we have factored into every step of our integration platform.
In this blog post we give you a guided tour through our Build, Run, Monitor Digibee interface to help you visualize how our unique enterprise iPaaS can support you, however your company is structured, whatever your integration needs are, and wherever you are in your integration lifecycle.
>> Book a personalized demo with our team of experts and see how Digibee’s iPaaS will bring efficiency to your business.
3 Ways Retail IT Solutions Can Help Improve Customer Experience
Customer experience is the key to unlocking profit in the retail industry. While keeping shoppers happy with your brand has always been a high priority for retail organizations, its importance has reached unprecedented levels.
And as economic uncertainties persist across the US and around the globe, the ability to deliver the optimum experience consumers expect in exchange for their business has become a matter of life or death for many businesses. So how do you optimize your customer’s experience – and what is the role of IT in retailing?
>> Book a personalized demo with our team of experts and see how Digibee’s iPaaS will bring efficiency to your business.
Examining the Retail Tech Landscape
Technology is simultaneously retailers’ most powerful asset and greatest foe. Established brands face new competition from digital natives that disrupt traditional business models with direct-to-consumer options. Technological developments in every other aspect of their lives have led shoppers to demand personalized service, rapid responses, and experiences customized to their individual needs and interests.
2022 was a year of digital transformation for many retail brands, and 2023 promises more of the same as companies embrace:
- Click and collect shopping options
- Data-based personalization
- Omnichannel commerce
- Artificial intelligence and virtual reality
- Links to external marketplaces
- Emerging tech like NFTs and the Metaverse
Digital technology and retail have become inseparable. Brands must embrace tools that increase efficiency and personalization to meet customers where they are – or resign themselves to obsolescence.
3 Steps to Improve Customer Shopping Experience
That list of trends and advances in retail tech may seem daunting. If your brand is still struggling to balance in-person service with ecommerce and social shopping, how will you possibly leverage virtual reality or the metaverse?
One step at a time, that’s how. Regardless of where your brand currently lives on the spectrum between legacy brick-and-mortar and fully virtual, here are three key steps to help you deliver the retail customer experience your shoppers demand.
1. Modernize Your Architecture
Identify where and how your IT architecture is holding you back from leveraging new tools and trends. Is your data still locked up in silos that prevent brick-and-mortar teams from seeing how shoppers engage online? This is a major roadblock that must be moved. Ensuring all your systems are connected and communicating – a shift to cloud-based tools and applications will support this – has a significant impact on the customer experience you deliver.
|
GJP Hotels & Resorts knew there was a problem when customer complaints about the lengthy check-in process increased. The negative customer experience threatened the company’s future – and they took action. The company leveraged Digibee’s eiPaaS to integrate their existing property management tools and systems with self-serve digital portals that reduced customer wait time by 80% and complaints by 100% in the first year of deployment. |
2. Empower Your Team
Maybe you’ve already started to access new retail IT solutions. But new tools often come with added deployment and maintenance requirements. Are you dependent on an external vendor to help you keep pace with digital natives? Or is the race to combine digital technology and retail putting increased load on your already overworked development team?
The IT skills shortage that developed post-pandemic is likely to persist, so a crucial part of optimizing CX is ensuring your organization can keep pace with new trends and market changes.
- Empower your developers with tools that let them deploy and maintain integrations and data knowledge in-house
- Adopt an IT infrastructure that delivers the agility and flexibility to leverage new opportunities
- Rethink strategies and solutions that leave you dependent on hard-to-find talent you might not always have
3. Simplify Your Systems
There’s a reason the K.I.S.S. principle is so ubiquitous. The shift to a fully integrated commerce solution doesn’t need to be complex or costly. Low- or no-code tools and platforms make it easy to build and deploy the applications and integrations your business needs to keep systems connected and customers happy.
|
Payless recognized the need to integrate their ecommerce and physical stores to deliver a consistent customer experience but faced challenges dealing with disparate legal and fiscal requirements of the 15 countries they had stores in. They came to Digibee for an integration solution that was secure, reliable, and capable of scaling to accommodate seasonal sales spikes. Digibee delivered a completely secure ecommerce solution spanning 200 stores in 15 countries in less than 30 days. |
Let Digibee Boost Your Retail IT Solutions
Digibee’s enterprise iPaaS is a full life-cycle, low-code integration solution that empowers brands to embrace the retail IT solutions they need to compete. Regardless of your organization’s current IT maturity level, we can help you modernize legacy solutions and integrate systems to leverage all the latest digital tools.
Download a complimentary copy of Fully Integrated Commerce for the Modern Retailer for details on how Digibee’s enterprise iPaaS can help improve your retail customer experience online and in-person, or book a custom demo to see our solution in action.
Forrester TEI Report: Enterprise Integration for Financial Services
In a recent engagement with Forrester Consulting, we asked the experts to put hard numbers behind the value Digibee delivers to our customers. The result? The Total Economic Impact™ Of Digibee’s Integration Platform as a Service (eiPaaS) report1, a detailed examination that quantifies the upside of Digibee’s eiPaaS technology.
In providing context to the research, Forrester conducted interviews with existing Digibee customers, taking what they learned and using it to create a composite customer: a financial services organization that we’ll call FinCo. This blog post explores in detail the total economic impact afforded to FinCo after implementing Digibee.
Frictionless Transformation Strategy: Revitalizing Retail Through Integration
Industry experts explore challenges and opportunities of retail integration, outlining the key components retailers need to succeed in 2023.
How to Gain Faster Time to Value with Your IT Integrations
Is the excitement of your IT integration starting to wear off as the months of disruption and training drag on? Selecting the right integration partner is an important decision that requires diligence, time, and patience. You may have thought that your current integration strategy would be the quickest, easiest route since you already had a relationship with your integration partner.
Now, the months-long implementation and upskilling for certification, along with your stagnant and ever-growing IT backlog may have you second-guessing your decision.
Don’t worry. Even as you continue with your current integration, there is a way to stay on top of your regular workload, burn your IT backlog and get faster time to value for your IT integrations. Here’s how.
>> Book a personalized demo with our team of experts and see how Digibee’s iPaaS will bring efficiency to your business.
Data Decentralization | Podcast Episode 12
Discussion on the topic of data decentralization and the importance of having both a strategy and technology in place to support it.
Digibee Employee Highlight Series: Zachary Belcher, Digital Architect
I had the pleasure of meeting this brave, technophile, triathlete, the extremely cool Zack Belcher! Check out his story and hear how he came to join the Digibee team as Digital Architect.
Press Fast-Forward: How to Reduce Time to Market with Digibee’s iPaaS
There are many financial benefits to enterprise integration and employing Digibee’s enterprise iPaaS, such as the cost saving of being able to use more junior developers, but beyond that there are also sizable financial gains to be made through speed, namely the benefits of a faster time to revenue through a faster product release cycle.
A recently-conducted Forrester Total Economic Impact™ of Digibee Report provided an opportunity for a third-party assessment that systematically explored the outcomes of partnering with Digibee for enterprise Integration. Using a composite organization modeled on the characteristics of interviewees’ organizations, this TEI report attributed +$1.3M of the +$5.9M total benefits Present Value (PV) to allowing a faster time to market for new products and services – that’s over one-fifth of total monetary benefits!
The Bigger Picture: How Data Analytics Integration with EI Support Retail Demand Forecasting
Retail information systems must find a way to work as a conduit between the digital world and the physical world, a real challenge when both are constantly changing in different ways. On one end, the customer expects a quick, easy, personalized omnichannel experience from the comfort of their couch, on the other end your retail IT solutions have to not only provide that, but then also provide a fast and seamless delivery of the physical items they bought, even if it’s 200 pounds of Italian marble for their kitchen counter.
Every physical product requires raw materials, manufacturing, and then shipping to (at a minimum) the end user. As there is no way around incurring these costs, ending up with excess inventory can quickly become a major expense. But since this manufacturing process also takes more time than a customer would be willing to wait, in most cases it has to be completed prior to a client’s order, meaning a retailer again ends up in a challenging position where they risk having too much or too little on-hand. In this way, accurate retail demand forecasting is essential for preserving your bottom line.
>> Book a personalized demo with our team of experts and see how Digibee’s iPaaS will bring efficiency to your business.