These enterprises frequently defer IT modernization initiatives, preferring to invest in other elements of the business, even as applications gradually and imperceptibly slide into legacy status. But to be a market-leading organization, you have to embrace modernization. You need to leverage your IT systems, data, and information to anticipate and exceed the needs of employees and customers. Without a concerted modernization strategy, operational and maintenance costs steadily increase while the systems themselves deliver less value. Profit margins are eroded, efficiency lags competitors’, and corporate morale suffers. Failure to modernize, typically by avoiding upgrades while applying quick fixes, creates technology debt, with these stopgap measures incurring hidden costs that must be paid later, with interest. Tech debt not only results in greater expense overall but it also hobbles a business in the short run, by exposing it to opportunity costs due to the inability to serve customers in new ways. Modernization is about more than just installing new IT systems. It demands the collaboration of business and technology leaders, who must work together to advocate for new initiatives that further their organization’s mission. Improved employee and customer experiences should be focal points of any modernization drive. In CIO’s “State of the CIO Survey 2022,” 78% of the respondents said interacting directly with customers would be an increasingly important revenue-generating priority at their organization.
