The Cost of Legacy Technology

There are many reasons for this, from the perception that the time and expense required to change is not cost-effective, to tailor-made internal software no longer being supported by its original creators. This can have cataclysmic effects on a business, far beyond employees having to engage with an outdated user interface – simple tasks can end up taking hours and in the worst-case scenarios organisations can be left vulnerable to cyberattack.

In recent times, lack of innovation and adoption of new technology has proven to be the downfall of some well-known high street names – for example, Thomas Cook has littered the headlines following its collapse. In an era when anyone can book their travel, accommodation and holiday entertainment from the comfort of their own home, travel companies can seriously damage themselves by ignoring this reality, failing to innovate and relying on legacy systems.

Businesses need to know the full extent to which using antiquated tech can cost them money and cause them damage.

Productivity

Lumbering employees with legacy technology can have a significant impact on productivity. From non-user friendly interfaces to suffering with access speeds, spending hours dealing with legacy technology can quickly add up, resulting in a significant cost to a business. Switching over to supporting modern applications and systems, such as cloud or machine learning, can go a long way to enabling a new wave of productivity within a business.

Security risks

Plan for the worst, hope for the best is a mantra adopted by a range of businesses from across a variety of sectors. In the world of GDPR and data protection, a cyber-attack can spell disaster for multiple reasons, from IT blackouts to hefty post-breach fines. Legacy systems present a major flaw in any business’ IT strategy and are an attractive proposition to any would-be hacker. All too often legacy systems are not updated with the latest patches that can include everything from protection against the latest ransomware codes to plugging previously unknown backdoors into the system. Although updating an entire organisation’s IT infrastructure can be costly in the short term, in the long run, it can save both money and time.

Downtime

Whether its software or hardware, even outside of a potential security breach legacy technology has a greater chance of failure the older it becomes. Something as simple as using a new piece of software or trying to install an update can be enough to trip up a legacy system, leaving users locked out from the information they need to do their jobs. Typically, a legacy system will only backup the data it holds on a scheduled basis, very rarely would it be a live backup. So if downtime does happen there’s also the chance that a huge amount of information has been lost forever, leaving teams scrabbling to recover backups, hoping that it won’t lead to massive expenses or reputation loss from unhappy customers.

Up in the cloud 

Many businesses who formally housed their data in legacy on-premise data stores have now shifted away in favour of cloud services and Software-as-a-Service (Saas) applications. Despite historic opinion, migrating data and applications to a purpose-built cloud platform can provide a significant degree of security but it can also deliver on a host of other benefits, providing businesses with a scalable data infrastructure solution on an OPEX basis. The cloud can also free up the time of IT teams to focus on strategic projects that will further the interests of the business, as opposed to maintaining outdated systems.

What can be done?

Ensuring businesses adopt technology that enables them to deliver better results is crucial if businesses truly want to benefit from digital transformation. This means investing in new technologies such as those that can deliver a more secure and intuitive experience or are more flexible to accommodate modern working demands. Whichever modern system organisations choose to use it is critical that they ensure they bridge the gap between legacy software and newer technology so that there is a defined migration process in place for the company’s data. Ultimately, organisations need to properly understand that without moving away from legacy technology and adopting next-generation tools then they won’t be able to truly unlock the digital potential of their business.