Legacy systems may not be flashy, but for many established businesses, they are the foundation that keeps everything running. Yet over time, even the most reliable legacy technology can start to hold organisations back. That’s why companies turn to Elemental Concept for help: to help them adapt confidently to the inevitable forces of change.
Given the critical role legacy systems play in “keeping the lights on”, organisations often try to protect them by limiting change. Whilst this approach is understandable, the outcome is that legacy systems tend to ossify, becoming harder, riskier and more expensive to modify.
This then re-enforces “don’t change it” behaviours, making it even more difficult to respond when change is inevitable.
Four drivers of change
In reality, change is inevitable. Often due to factors beyond control of the organisation, there are (at least) four drivers of change we see across our clients that force change in legacy systems.
- People changes – knowledge gaps and lost talent
- Legal and regulatory changes – a need to stay compliant
- Technological changes – evolving environments
- Business changes – aligning systems with strategy
People changes – knowledge gaps and lost talent
People changes will happen, whether we like it or not.
Key personnel retire, teams move on, and fewer professionals invest time learning legacy technologies that are no longer in demand. When this happens, it quickly becomes apparent just how critical institutional knowledge is to the stability and performance of core systems.
At Elemental Concept, our experience working with legacy platforms, and understanding how they support your business outcomes, means we can help bridge the gaps as expertise leaves the organisation.
Legal and regulatory changes – staying compliant
Organisations don’t (for the most part!) get to choose the legal and regulatory environment in which they operate. Furthermore, this environment continues to change, as seen in the ongoing tightening of controls around “managing” personal and financial information within information processing systems.
We help clients chart the data their legacy systems hold, catalogue and classify it, and introduce robust information governance practices. This not only enables compliance but can also uncover valuable insights locked away in aging platforms.
Technological changes and evolving environments
Once an information processing system is operational, it is tempting to imagine that it can simply be left “as-is” and it will just keep doing its job.
However, there are two fundamental reasons why these systems can rarely be left “unmanaged” for an extended period:
- The environment in which the system operates continues to evolve, meaning eventually how the system connects to “the rest of the world” will change (for example, consider the ongoing efforts to require TLS v1.3 across many organisations, many older systems only “understand” TLS v1.2 or earlier)
- Some crucial underlying component of the system stops working, such as a software framework, operating system or the physical hardware running the system.
As an example, consider the “Y2K” issues for software. Or imagine the operational disruption when decades-old hardware fails and replacements are no longer manufactured (anyone still got an Itanium based system?). These scenarios illustrate why proactive management is essential to keeping core systems secure and operational.
Business changes – aligning systems with strategy
When legacy systems can’t keep pace with evolving business needs, manual workarounds inevitably emerge. Think of the vast swaths of spreadsheets created to fill gaps, consuming valuable time and introducing compliance risks.
But embracing change isn’t only about preventing problems. Modernising legacy systems is also an opportunity to streamline processes, reduce inefficiency, and build a foundation for innovation. By putting the right measures in place to ensure changes are well-managed and low-risk, organisations can achieve “dynamic stability” – where adapting systems safely and cost-effectively becomes the norm, not the exception (the opposite of the “static stability” achieved by the “don’t change anything” school of thought!)
The alternatives are less appealing:
- do nothing (and let the business lose its competitive edge)
- completely re-write the system from scratch (an opportunity to re-learn knowledge already in the existing system and make a whole batch of brand-new mistakes along the way!)
- Manual workarounds that deploy vast swathes of spreadsheets (probably involving lots of data re-keying) thus consuming large amounts of valuable people time, providing far more potential for error and forming a compliance nightmare.
So, what’s the solution?
Legacy systems may not make headlines like the latest AI breakthroughs, but they remain the backbone of countless businesses. To keep that foundation strong, these systems must be maintained, modernised, and adapted as your organisation evolves.
At Elemental Concept, we specialise in helping companies secure, optimise, and extend the life of their critical technology, so you can innovate with confidence, knowing your core operations are built to last.
If your legacy systems are becoming a barrier to growth, compliance, or efficiency, we’re here to help. Contact us to start a conversation about securing and modernising your core technology
