Digital Transformation of a Fragmented Enterprise

Excerpt: 

In today’s digital first economy, organizations are trying to transform customer experiences on an increasing number of digital touch points. As they set out to achieve this onerous task that everyone is calling digital transformation, organizations face various challenges. Starting from reliance on legacy systems to siloed applications and systems to an increasing number of purchasing channels for customers, to the pace at which new technology is being introduced into the market, enterprises are facing an existential challenge. In this relentless digital landscape where customers demand to be met at their digital coordinates, the organizations must adapt or will surely be Let’s take a closer look at some of the challenges that plague organizations.

Reliance on Legacy Systems:
A large number of organizations are still handcuffed by age old ERPs, home-grown and proprietary legacy applications to power their business critical functions such as order fulfillment , inventory management, supplier management and billing/invoicing. These systems were never built for today’s digital first reality and are slow to change, inaccessible, built on rigid relational databases and simply can not scale or perform to meet the demands of modern digital experiences.

One should ask – why not simply replace these legacy systems with more modern software applications that were purpose built to scale and perform in today’s digitally reality? After all, there is no shortage of such applications as new entrants seem to be appearing in the market daily. Well, this is not as easy as it sounds. These back-end legacy systems have evolved over the years by bolting on parts and modules that contain undocumented business logic and the tribal knowledge has escaped the organization with employees over the years. IT executives are painfully aware of this legacy baggage and its ongoing cost of maintenance to the organization. They also know that replacing these systems is an extremely expensive, often a multi-year initiative that is simply not practical as they scramble to compete for custom’s attention.