Unlocking Legacy Gold: Pega's Modernization Approach for Organizations

Are legacy systems a major roadblock in achieving your organization’s full potential? Legacy systems are often referred to as hardware or software that is no longer capable of meeting an organization's current or future needs. In other words, legacy/outdated systems are not necessarily old, but it is incompatible with newer systems.

Even though legacy systems often stand as an obstacle to progress in many organizations, they represent a significant investment! Most of the outdated systems are a rich repository of historical data and established business logic. So, throwing them away not only disrupts critical operations but also wastes valuable historical insights.

Risks and Challenges of Legacy Systems

What happens if organizations hang on to their legacy/outdated systems? They prevent organizations from benefiting from modern technologies. Hence, they lag behind their competitors in the digital race. Here are some of the drawbacks of legacy systems:

·?????? Lack of agility and analysis capability

·?????? Unable to meet modern customer’s expectations

·?????? Incompatibility with new devices

·?????? Fragmented data

·?????? Security threats

·?????? Limited flexibility, making them challenging to change or customize

·?????? Unable to offer the functionality of modern solutions

·?????? Maintenance cost

Hence, embracing digital transformation is vital to increasing revenue, performance, and productivity.

What Stops Organizations from Modernizing?

When organizations try to modernize legacy systems using the traditional approach, they often run into big problems. The traditional approach is highly expensive and involves long projects. Moreover, it requires organizations to replace their legacy system, rather than update them.

The main challenges organizations face in trying to modernize their legacy systems are:

·?????? Complex Process: Legacy systems are intertwined with other business functions, so disrupting one part can affect others.

·?????? Integration challenges: Legacy systems often operate in silos, making integration with modern platforms a significant hurdle. Incompatible data formats, lack of modern APIs, and vulnerable security protocols are the major challenges here.

·?????? Lack of Expertise: Organizations also find it challenging to find professionals with the skills to navigate legacy systems.

·?????? Data Migration: Transferring data from a legacy system to a new platform is a delicate process, which can lead to data loss or corruption, and security issues.

Modernization at Speed and Scale

Organizations must grow and adapt in parallel with technological advances to keep up with the changing times. However, rather than attempting to replace massive legacy systems, organizations can take a simpler approach such as what Pega offers. Pega’s solutions allow organizations to connect their existing legacy system with advanced low-code applications.

Pega’s Approach

Pega offers innovative solutions for integrating legacy systems. Pega’s cutting-edge tools focus on agility, stability, and efficient integration. Thus, it allows organizations to unlock the value of their legacy systems while embracing modern digital capabilities.

Let’s explore Pega’s approach:

Pega’s suite of tools enables organizations to be agile on the front-end while maintaining stability on the back-end. Instead of replacing legacy systems entirely, Pega recommends wrapping them in an agile technology layer. This layer allows organizations to deploy new features quickly without risking their existing investments in legacy systems. By doing so, organizations can connect to modern digital channels (such as mobile, chatbots, and virtual assistants) while preserving the rich data stored in their legacy systems.

Pega provides a virtualized data layer that simplifies connecting to legacy systems. This layer abstracts the complexities of integration, allowing seamless communication between the organization’s systems and digital channels. Pega’s library of integration technologies and ecosystem of components and connectors further facilitate this process. Moreover, even if your organization’s legacy systems lack APIs, Pega offers built-in robotic automation to bridge the gap.

Pega has a centralized approach to digital transformation. So, instead of beginning your organization’s digital transformation at the legacy data layer or individual channels, Pega starts from the center and works outwards. This connects your organization’s systems to channels systematically, ensuring a holistic approach. In addition, Pega’s powerful end-to-end automation and AI-driven decisions help turn legacy system data into cross-channel experiences for your customers.

While dealing with legacy systems, complexity is often a barrier to digital transformation. However, Pega's Situational Layer Cake architecture is designed to manage the complexities of real-world businesses. This patented architecture makes it easier for organizations to wrangle complexity- irrespective of whether it's handling duplicate systems, different business lines, or adding new layers in the future!

Conclusion

Pega acknowledges the dual nature of legacy systems: their potential as assets and their limitations as roadblocks. Pega's wrap-and-renew approach allows organizations to retain the stability of their legacy systems while adding a layer of agility. This approach enables the deployment of new features in weeks, connecting to digital channels like mobile, chatbots, and virtual assistants at the speed of today's business demands. Talk to our experts at Instellars to learn how Pega’s solutions can be used to modernize your legacy systems.