Tag: application modernization

Decoding the Organization DNA: How to Prevent Application Modernization Failure | Blog

Application modernization initiatives implemented in the wrong environment are doomed to fail. But these strategies can be transformed to success by starting with the right organizational makeup. Discover why having the right DNA of Dedicated product teams, Next-generation talent, and an A3 culture make all the difference.

With applications increasingly becoming integral to enterprise business strategy, mediocrity has no place when it comes to application modernization. Today’s applications are expected to be ultra-fast (millisecond response rate), scalable to millions of users, available globally, and capable of handling petabytes of data. Legacy and monolithic applications are frequently cited as the key roadblocks in achieving these high standards. Accordingly, the race is on to migrate these applications to containerized workloads in the cloud to improve agility and customer experience (CX).

However, many of these proposed transformations don’t succeed. Research shows 78% of digital transformation initiatives fail to meet all intended objectives. Monoliths are broken down into microservices, on-premise to cloud migration is executed, and DevOps methodologies are implemented, yet the full expected results are never achieved. What could these transformations be missing?

Just as the healthiest seed may also fail if planted on infertile soil, transformations fail if implemented in unsuitable environments. A successful application modernization strategy needs the right structure, the right environment to support that structure, and the right people to be part of that environment.

How to unlock value in applications

We have identified three focus areas for organizations seeking to unlock value from their applications – team structure, culture, and talent strategy. To achieve best-in-class results, application modernization strategy needs to be backed by a solid organization DNA that has the following elements:

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Dedicated product teams – Persistent teams that remain intact over the product’s life cycle should replace traditional factory models with periodic talent rotation. By developing trust and expertise organically, these teams can then use their expertise to lay the right product roadmaps

Next-generation talent – A meticulous talent strategy focused on managing the entire talent lifecycle (upskilling, retention, acquisition) is vital to overcome the key challenges in scaling agile practices (such as lack of right talent and skills, cited by about 77% of executives)

A3 culture – High-performing generative cultures embrace novelty and avoid stagnation (Assertive); are open to introspection (Aware), and cut across silos by being highly cooperative (Associative)

Without these DNA components in place, application modernization initiatives run the risk of resulting in process change rather than outcomes change. Agile practices may sacrifice quality for speed, avoid documentation, and micromanage progress. The same practices in the right environment will deliver scalable, people-centric development with better business-IT alignment and systematic change management.

Application modernization transformation with the right DNA in place can make a world of difference. Innovation becomes faster. Employees can collaborate with increased synergy and achieve hyper-productivity. With the focus thoroughly shifted to outcomes, the end-customer realizes a significantly enhanced experience. Transformation without DNA backing is like driving a sports car in second gear where all the right technical components are in place, but they are not being utilized optimally.

Learn more about the many different aspects of ensuring transformation success in our recent report, Unlocking Business Value through DNA-backed Transformation. You could also learn more in our webinar, Resilient Digitization – Your Highway to Enterprise Transformation.

To share your thoughts on application modernization initiatives and discuss our research related to organizational DNA, please reach out to [email protected] and [email protected].

Legacy IT Systems Weigh Down ‘Digital First’ Efforts of More Than Half of Enterprises—Everest Group | Press Release

80% of enterprises’ application modernization efforts are limited to ‘lift-and-shift’ rather than meaningful changes to the underlying architecture; enterprises need to invest in intelligent sentient architecture if they are serious about digital transformation

More than 54 percent of enterprises aspiring to digitally transform blame their slow-moving efforts on the constraints of legacy systems. A key, but too often disregarded, component of those legacy systems is the architecture of enterprise software, according to Everest Group, which reports that 80 percent of enterprise efforts to modernize their applications is limited to a “lift-and-shift” approach as opposed to the adoption of modern software architecture practices which would considerably accelerate digital journeys.

“With a traditional software architecture approach, the enterprise focus is on ‘how’—basing their software architecture on the technologies they want to adopt,” said Yugal Joshi, vice president at Everest Group. “Instead, enterprises should focus on the ‘what’—user expectations and business outcomes—as they design and modernize their software architectures. Unfortunately, enterprises aren’t hiring the right talent to accomplish this.”

Joshi explains that a wide chasm exists between the next-generation architecture aspirations of enterprises and the skills of their enterprise architects. Unfortunately enterprises are not moving fast enough to fill this gap. For example even for hiring next-generation architects, 5 percent of enterprise architects are expected to have expertise in containers, 10 percent in microservices, 15 percent in DevOps, and only 1 percent in serverless technologies.

These next-generation technologies and development approaches are key foundational elements for creating sentient architectures, software architectures that are agile and responsive to business needs. Sentient architecture systems are driven by the 3Ds of design centricity, dynamic adaptability and discrete structures:

  • Design centricity: Systems need to be intuitive and should be designed collaboratively rather than being the responsibility of the enterprise architect alone.
  • Dynamic adaptability: The architecture should be adaptable so that it can be easily refactored or re-architected, without requiring a massive time-consuming investment to deliver value to customers.
  • Discrete structures: Software should be composed of discrete components that are granular in nature and can be integrated with other components when required. This will require architects to break down application components into software-enabled services that are independent, distributed and loosely coupled.

These results and other findings are explored in a recently published Everest Group report: “Application Services—Annual Report 2018: The Future of Architecture is Intelligent.” This research provides fact-based analysis of buyer trends by geography, industry and revenue size. It analyzes major trends impacting the application services market and provides an outlook for the year ahead.

 Key Findings About the Applications Services Market

  • Stand-alone application deals continued their upward trend, constituting two out of every three deals signed (67 percent). Bundled deals that combined application services and infrastructure services also witnessed a slight uptick (11 percent from 9 percent), suggesting that enterprises are beginning to find more value in the convergence of these layers than in the silos.
  • The declining deal size trend saw reversal, and the deal sizes for application services grew by over 25 percent this year, compared to the previous year. This is indicative of a vendor consolidation exercise where a lesser number of service providers are getting the larger share of client’s spend.
  • Application services deal duration continued to be dominated by deals with durations of less than three years (40 percent); deals with a duration over five years constituted only 16 percent of the deal volume.
  • New contracts took up a slight majority (52 percent) in contract type, suggesting that the trend of anti-incumbency and customer dissatisfaction prevails.
  • Surprisingly, deals with consulting in scope dropped sharply to 43 percent of the deal volume. However, 55 percent of deals included system integration in scope, suggesting that the precipitous drop in consulting deal volume might be an anomaly.

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