Organisations often face challenges when trying to improve productivity. This can lead to a “Productivity Lock”, which in turn causes “Legacy Frustration”.

This frustration arises from “The Legacy Dilemma” – the difficult choices organisations must make regarding their outdated systems.

However, there is another option available. It’s not always necessary to completely replace existing systems. A more effective approach is to bolster their weaknesses. This involves creating a layer of modern software around the legacy investment.

As Albert Einstein is often quoted: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

It’s time to change our approach to legacy systems.

The Impact of Legacy Frustration

Legacy Frustration is the negative emotional response experienced by organisational leaders and their staff when they feel constrained by the limitations of their operational systems.

This constraint has significant impacts, both financially and on people:

• Financial Impacts:
• Reduced productivity due to staff being tied to mundane administrative tasks.
• Constrained growth because of capacity limitations.
• Recruitment difficulties.
• Increased exposure to employment inflation.
• Human Impacts:
• Colleagues working harder, not smarter.
• Fear of making errors.
• Low team engagement due to excessive administrative work and insufficient time for higher-value activities.
• Constraints on innovation, leading to a “that’s the way we’ve always done it” mentality.

The Legacy Dilemma

The Legacy Dilemma presents organisations with a difficult choice. Traditional approaches to systems evolution often involve:

• If there’s a significant issue with the system, replace it with a new one.

This is the “amputate and replace” approach, which involves short-term pain in the hope of long-term gain.

Modern Software to the Rescue

Recent advancements in technology have introduced new capabilities, including:

• Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
• Low-Code platforms
• Generative AI

These technologies enable a new way of thinking about the Legacy Dilemma.

A New Way of Thinking

Just as in modern medicine, there’s a strong preference to avoid disruptive procedures, lengthy treatments, and unnecessary risk.
Here’s a new approach:

• Build on what works well.
• Support the weaknesses.
• Wrap, don’t replace.

“Compose the Solution”

A “Compose the Solution” approach is designed to meet the process-wide needs of organisations, both within and beyond their firewalls. It involves:

• Composing a solution from interoperable components.
• Using essential components that provide the framework.
• Utilising contextual components that personalise the solution to specific needs.
• Meeting most specific requirements with pre-designed components, saving time and effort.
• Delivering components progressively to maintain motivation.
• Reducing the time to achieve tangible improvements.
• Addressing high-priority issues first.
• Adopting a continuous improvement approach.
• Replacing the conventional “big bang” approach.
• Incorporating components as technology advances, enhancing the solution’s durability and longevity.
  • For example, integrating Generative AI into established processes rather than simply “bolting it on” for a specific function.

Wrap, Don’t Replace: The World’s Fastest Cure

While “the world’s fastest” is a bold claim, the “wrap, don’t replace” approach offers significant advantages:

• It eliminates the need to move data from one system to another.
• It enables connections to any data source.
• It avoids the complex and time-consuming task of onboarding replacement systems.
• It allows existing processes to continue but with added automation.
• It minimises disruption and the need for extensive change management.
• It reduces training costs.
• It avoids extensive parallel running and testing.
• Additions are made step-by-step.
• The benefits are immediately available.
• The resulting solution precisely meets the client’s needs.
• Pre-built components and templates are used to quickly compose a specific solution.
• Workflow automation ensures human time is optimised and errors are minimised.
• Integration with external systems maximises the time to value without compromising the solution design.
• Responsive design and cross-platform support ensure that users can engage on the device of their choice.

“One-to-Many” vs. “Compose the Solution”

This blog is based on our experience and observations working in market sectors with two key attributes:

• Reliance on deeply embedded legacy systems to run operations.
• A need to share sensitive information on an ad hoc basis beyond the organisation’s firewall.

These market sectors include legal, accountancy, and procurement.

“One-to-Many” Thinking

The first generation of solution delivery can be seen as “one-to-many”. Developers aimed to build once to meet the needs of many. A range of on/off options enabled individual organisations to use a fraction of the whole to meet their needs.
Technology limitations at the time dictated:

• That the focus was entirely on internal needs, i.e., what happens within an organisation’s firewalls. Email was seen as the primary way to work between external organisations.
• That the whole could only be configured in predefined ways (by toggling options). Adding new elements to the whole was highly complex and risky – similar to adding completely new elements to any complex product (car, aircraft, etc.).

These technical limitations made it very difficult to adapt solutions to meet changing operational needs – hence the “Productivity Lock”.

“Compose the Solution” Thinking

“Compose the Solution” thinking:

• Seeks to meet the needs of multiple organisations with similar operational needs.
• Is designed to meet their process-wide needs, i.e., inside and beyond their firewalls.
• Composes a solution from interoperable components.
• Uses essential components that provide the framework.
• Uses contextual components that personalise the solution to a specific need.

Essential and Contextual Components

There are essential framework components and contextual components. For example, the ability to share information with granular access control (the portal) is an essential framework component. The way the screens within that portal display is contextual.