What’s Driving App Modernization?

The pandemic, the endless geo-political and economic turbulence, and the overall instability of the fast-growing tech market leave little to no space for accurate predictions of pretty much any walk of life. To future-proof their businesses, most organizations try to keep up with the latest tech innovations, because we can only be sure of one thing - the ceaseless evolution of technology. That’s why keeping up with the key tech trends and staying focused on making wise decisions despite all the noise will definitely help you face the uncertain market conditions that businesses find themselves in these days. 

Let’s first take a look at the main factors affecting organizations worldwide: 

   - Digital transformation and app modernization

   - Sustainability 

   - Immersive customer experience

   - Lack of top talent or the talent retention challenge

   - Privacy and security concerns

   - Data growth

   - Risk assessment

While some of these factors might seem totally unrelated to one another, they are all big constituents of pretty much any business and lagging behind in any of them can actually have a negative impact on your company. 

This is not to say that each aspect needs an equal investment of time and resources. Depending on your industry, your company needs and demands, your customers, and their expectations, you should be able to distribute your finances effectively and put the bigger focus on the aspect that is more relevant to your organization.

What’s Affecting Organizations Worldwide? A Quick Overview

Let’s now have a closer look at our list of factors affecting businesses nowadays:

Sustainability

In a 2022 research, around 36% of companies in North America and 49% in Europe mentioned the transition risk as their biggest concern related to climate change. The latter refers to the change from carbon-based energy to carbon-free methods. The second and third biggest concerns were the climate change reporting requirements and the physical risks respectively. 

Now more than ever businesses are required to meet the international sustainability standards. It’s not just about the impact of businesses on climate change, but also that of climate change on businesses - it’s a two-way street. This is why putting more focus on your environmental, social, and governance (ESG) processes should become a priority in 2023 and beyond. 

Immersive Customer Experience

The demand for better experience together with easier and simpler access to services grows in parallel with the development of technology. This is where the need for immersive customer experience kicks in. Modern technologies such as 3D environments, VR, and AR allow businesses to create incomparable real-life experiences for their customers to improve customer loyalty and brand identity. 

Lack of Top Talent

On that note, it’s also worth mentioning that a business’ success is not measured only by its loyal customer base, but also by the loyalty of its employees. The top talent challenge has been on the rise for a while now, making it harder for organizations to handle their business processes effectively. 

The post-pandemic era marked with the so-called great resignation and quiet quitting that made companies and employees reassess the traditional approaches to hiring and work-life balance. Retaining top talent is harder than ever now. To keep your valuable employees  at your company, you need to provide attractive career opportunities, space for growth, the flexibility of a hybrid work environment, and a healthy company culture. 

Privacy and Security

The more innovations the tech market comes with, the more vulnerable businesses become in terms of privacy and security. Around 97% of companies are planning to invest more in security measurements directed at the protection of consumer data in the coming year. Here is some of the latest statistics on privacy and security concerns you might not know: 

   - Since 2020, fraud cases have increased by up to 70%. 

   - 84% of users say that they want more control over how their data is used. 

   - 48% changed companies because they were not satisfied with the ways their data was handled. 

   - In 2022 alone, there was a 48% increase in phishing attacks that cost companies around $12.3 billion. 

   - Another 41% accounted for ransomware attacks. 

   - Around 40% of cyber attacks are carried out through the supply chain. 

   - Moreover, the increasing popularity of IoT makes it yet another target for cybercriminals. 

   - The most vulnerable industries to cyber crime in the past year were healthcare, finances, retail, education, and energy and utilities. 

   - Cybercrime is expected to cost nearly $10.5 trillion annually by 2025.

These numbers only prove the importance of having a robust security system in place for businesses worldwide. 

Data Growth

Ensuring the right security measures for your business will also determine the way you handle the almost incessant data growth that’s coming your way. According to the International Data Corporation, the data growth will reach 181 zettabytes by 2025, as compared to the 45 zettabytes in 2019. Such factors as increased internet access, broadband access, social media and mobile phone use contribute to the exponential growth of data. 

Businesses looking to stay competitive in the market should incorporate data-driven strategies into their work processes. This means making the most of data and analytics to collect business insights and improve your product or service, as well as provide better user experience, identify new business opportunities, increase sales, and streamline business processes.

Risk Assessment

And last but not least, none of the above factors could be dealt with successfully without a solid risk assessment plan. As a business owner, you and your team need to be able to identify, understand, and evaluate the potential hazards at your company. This ensures the smooth execution of day-to-day operations as well as future-proofs your business. 

Digital Transformation and App Modernization

Now that we have covered the main factors that influence businesses nowadays, it’s high time to separately address the one thing that not only has a huge impact on organizations worldwide, but is also closely connected to each of the above-listed points. 

Give it a second glance and you will see that in order to come out a winner in any of the above-listed situations, at some point, you will need to turn to the benefits of digital transformation:

   - Sustainability can be effectively incorporated into your app modernization processes. Here are some ways you can do it: build sustainable technology infrastructure by moving to the cloud and using edge devices to decrease energy consumption, have your teams employ sustainability culture, focus on your DevOps processes to optimize software for improved energy management, and lastly, execute your app development with cloud native for faster development and higher flexibility. 

   - It goes without saying that immersive customer experience is itself a form of digital transformation that will boost your brand reputation and improve your customer experience. 

   - When it comes to the top talent challenge, digital transformation can give you a helping hand too. Employees stay with companies which are flexible, agile, and open to change and innovation. No one wants to fix legacy code and handle the maintenance of obsolete software - it is difficult, time- and energy-consuming, slow, and does not provide space for professional growth. If your company uses legacy systems, that might be one of the reasons scaring your top talent away. 

   - With modernized apps, you also modernize and improve your security systems, making them less vulnerable to cyber attacks. 

   - To successfully handle data growth and data privacy as well as to use it to your benefit, you need software tools that will ease the data collection process and help you analyze all that information without consuming much time. This will help you to effectively reap the insights you need for your business. Other than that, obsolete or traditional software systems fail to comply with the modern regulatory and industry guidelines for data privacy and security, which is of crucial importance, especially if you are dealing with sensitive user data. 

   - And finally, risk assessment will also become easier with the help of innovative technologies and improved software systems. You will have more data at hand and will be able to make more precise predictions regarding possible hazards that could harm your business processes. 

It’s a matter of time until most, if not all businesses worldwide will resort to app modernization and digital transformation. The infographic below will reassure you in the importance of focusing your efforts on your app modernization needs before it’s too late: 

Here are some further insights into what drives app modernization collected from a recent survey carried out by Foundry, an IDG (international Data Group) company: 

   - 87% of the participants mentioned the modernization of critical business applications as an important step to success and competitive advantage. 

   - 86% of the organizations have been heavily hit by technical debt over the past year. 

   - 72% report an unprecedented growth of data volumes that has got out of their control. This, in turn, has made the implementation of a data governance program a priority for at least 64% of the respondents. 

   - 51% mentioned that their companies have gone through a cybersecurity breach over the past year, overcoming which has taken from 1 day up to a week. 

Summing up, we can break down the reasons behind the need for digital transformation and app modernization into the following categories: 

   - Shortage of Top Talent: There are not many specialists who know how to handle legacy systems. Moreover, enterprises need to invest time and resources to do training for their staff in legacy software management and maintenance. At the same time, developers are not willing to move back in time and learn the ways a legacy system works when the modern tech has come up with more innovative, simple, and efficient solutions. 

   - Security: Modernized apps are much safer and less vulnerable. Besides, they make it easier for tech teams to handle security breaches. 

   - Competitive Advantage: The above statistics are self-explanatory. Each and every successful innovation gives you a competitive edge in the market. 

   - Lack of Vendor Support: With legacy applications, you may find yourself in a situation where your app vendor goes out of business, leaving you without tech support. This will basically deprive you of any possible upgrades, and even patches in case of issues. 

   - Cost Savings: Legacy apps come with apparent and hidden expenses that over time will eat up a large portion of your budget. Lots of enterprises spend the majority of their IT budget on the maintenance of legacy systems which is unthinkable in our times, when only a part of that money could be directed to innovation. 

   - Improved Performance and Greater Scalability: It goes without saying that modernized applications will speed up your business processes and improve efficiency. Additionally, fixing issues and bugs will also become faster without any harm to the customer experience and your brand reputation. E.g., when you divide your monolithic legacy app into interconnected microservices, it becomes much easier to maintain. If one of the microservices goes down, it will not affect the whole application. 

A few other benefits of app modernization include: 

   - Faster time to market

   - Lower cost of ownership

   - Enabling Rapid App Development and better DevOps practices

   - Improved portability

   - Faster feature delivery

Parting Thoughts

Digital transformation is here to stay. Looking down upon its importance will end up costing your business much more than just financial losses. If you haven’t already done a thorough assessment of your existing software systems to understand the urgency for app modernization, now is a good time to give it a go. 

Aaron Levie, the CEO of Box, put it quite rightfully: “The last ten years of IT have been about changing the way people work. The next ten years of IT will be about transforming your business.”

If you are looking for a reliable partner to help you in your app modernization journey, our experts would be happy to guide you in the right direction. Let us innovate your legacy systems and build a better future for your business.