Introduction
Organizations are changing at a rapid pace, and legacy systems may lack the flexibility and scalability to keep up, particularly with today’s tech-savvy end users. It’s critical to focus on the software you are currently using for your organization to hit the marks of cost savings, increased efficiency and innovation. Some of these may be fine in their current state but more likely than not, legacy software will turn out to be an anchor weighing the organization down.
For many businesses, software modernization can be an overwhelming task because the journey of modernization looks different for every organization and it can be difficult to know where to start. This is where the assistance of a reliable and competent partner comes in handy, as even the largest and most experienced organizations may have difficulty completing the task alone. The right partner can help you perform the strategic assessment for your crucial software, delineate the right modernization roadmap, and deliver streamlined execution for cloud application migration or re-coding legacy solutions.
How to Look for ‘The Best Choice’?
Outsourcing software modernization can assist businesses in better resource allocation while still providing ongoing support. A perfect software modernization partner should be a good match to your tech preferences with proven experience and multidisciplinary expertise, able to identify possible challenges, mitigate potential risks, come up with effective solutions and provide guidance throughout the journey.
When looking for a suitable fit, you should ask yourself the following questions:
- Is the potential software modernization partner equipped with the necessary resources for the entire process and to work through potential challenges that may arise during the development stage?
- Do they have the necessary procedures and structures set up to carry out the modernization efficiently?
- Does the vendor have extensive knowledge and experience of similar processes?
It will be easier for you to assess the capability of the potential partner based on these findings. In case you still have any trouble or hesitance in reaching a decision, we have a list of areas you can focus on for further clarity when talking to the potential partner.
Areas of Focus
Tried and Tested Processes
It is important to identify whether or not the team is ready to take on advanced tasks such as software modernization. An efficient way to identify the team’s level of maturity and reliability is their usage of time-tested tools and techniques developed over the years by a successful collaboration with clients from different market niches.
Credibility
A partner with a track record of successfully modernizing multiple projects is preferable to someone new to modernization. Reviews are a good place to start. A good review helps you gather the clients’ opinions about the working experience and collaboration areas such as communication, tech expertise, timelines costs, etc.
Another option is to look at the company portfolio, taking into account the technological relevancy to your business needs. A set of solid and detailed case studies demonstrates how seriously a company takes delivering high-quality software so that it can build on its successes.
This will help you find a stable, reliable, and credible partner for the long term to help run, fine-tune and develop your software.
Quality Assurance
As your product evolves, so does its risk and vulnerability, making Quality Assurance activities even more critical. The role of QA is to make sure that the software gives your customers the experience exactly as committed with upgraded features and functionality. A good software company should have a department to assure quality through functional, load, stress and security testing. Your partner’s testing team should have reliable standards and a knowledge base about different test types, including API tests, regression tests, performance tests and automated tests.
Tech Expertise
The software modernization partner’s team should be able to suggest the best tech combination based on its broad tech expertise, understanding of your needs and awareness of the latest compliance guidelines. Ensure that your partner has experience working with advanced solutions, such as cloud architectures, cross-platform development, or big data.
Transparency
Greater transparency leads to fewer “surprises” and greater understanding. The partner should be transparent about how they work in terms of their processes, expertise, challenges, costs, project, etc. Information flow is one of the most essential benefits of transparency. A well-coordinated modernization plan and management tools should be made available to you which will help you understand where the team is in pipelines of tasks.
In case of any questions or concerns, the tech team should be open to conversation, brainstorming, and communication. Reliable tech partner uses their experience to identify potential obstacles, inform you of their likelihood of occurring, and reduce unavoidable damages that may occur.
Agility
Agile methodologies allow you to plan and monitor the roadmap realistically and efficiently. A reliable partner should be able to adapt to your specific needs or changed requirements by scaling the team up or down and by continuously adjusting the methods and tools used in the process. Based on your feedback, the partner team should also be willing to address any gaps in delivery.
You can choose a collaborative model according to your preference of level of engagement in the process. Team Augmentation is one of these many models in which you choose to enrich your internal team with specialists from the partner’s side or you can choose to hand over the full responsibility to your software partner. In the latter, the partner will assign a dedicated, multidisciplinary team for the work on different modules and functionalities.
Conclusion
Working with a partner who is adaptable and capable of meeting your competing objectives can satisfy both your growth goals and your modernization challenges. You want an expert who can deliver a highly targeted change to your legacy system designed to have the greatest impact, integrate your current systems with a cloud infrastructure, or replace your legacy software on both the backend and frontend completely. So don’t lag and choose an experienced and goal-oriented tech partner based on your particular needs, requirements, and expectations.
