Nitin Rakesh, CEO and President, Syntel, gives three steps to a future-proof enterprise.
In the digital age, our world is increasingly connected and increasingly digital, forcing business leaders to transform their business models in order to meet the demands of today’s customers. Evolving customer expectations like ‘always on’ functionality and ‘always available’ service are leaving enterprises in the unenviable position of having to create value by delivering a multichannel customer experience, while also developing the agility required to operate in a digital landscape.
Clearly, for some enterprises, this is a tall order.
A March 2016 report from Forrester Research revealed that 94% of mature businesses plan to address the threat of digital disruption by transforming systems and processes to become more agile for the digital age. The report pointed out that many executives still fail to grasp the need for new technologies in the current business environment, and stressed the importance of integrating digital end-to-end and across the enterprise.
Modernising legacy systems
The need of the hour is for traditional players to modernise their legacy systems in order to stay relevant in today’s fast-changing markets. Legacy infrastructure and software are deeply embedded in organisations, but often have limited functionality that creates issues such as lack of scalability, difficulty integrating with new technologies, skills shortages, and high cost of ownership.
In many scenarios, the risk of business disruption outweighs the cost of replacing legacy systems, which is why many organisations find themselves shackled to these older systems. In this case, it may be more effective to manage the legacy portfolio by employing automation to run the business at peak efficiency without eliminating legacy systems altogether.
Migrating to new platforms
While the value of the data contained in legacy systems is undisputed, it is now more important than ever to unlock the power of this data and migrate it onto new platforms to adapt and stay relevant in the digital world. To offset the costs associated with this undertaking, legacy business models need to be fused with disruptive innovations in order to future-proof the business.
Implementing modernisation tools
Advanced legacy modernisation tools can accelerate the transition to new digital platforms, and when coupled with automation, play a central role in a smart redeployment of your organisation’s intellectual capital and funding to enable a digital transformation.
One of the challenges during the transformation process is the ability to integrate these changes within the business culture. Breaking away from processors such as legacy systems can be daunting, but external service providers can offer the expertise to make the process more fluid.
Smart partners are able to prioritise the three different actions described above, performing a sort of ‘digital triage’ that can effectively redirect your efforts toward enhancing the customer experience and improving financial performance. This type of solution adopts a low-risk, cost-effective approach to change the business — unlocking competitive advantage and creating greater value.
Digital transformation is a journey, and will involve changes throughout the organisation. By ensuring a continuous modernisation process and a good strategic alignment with your provider, your enterprise can effectively balance the overall transformation cost with the demand for new business innovations.
Edited for web by Cecilia Rehn.
