Navigating the Modernization Labyrinth – The Zero Disruption Way

Over the last two centuries, technology has provided specific points of inflection that have completely changed the approach of the human race across multiple dimensions. While the 19th century saw the Industrial revolution, the 20th century saw the Information technology revolution, and now, the world is currently in the midst of the digital revolution.

The digital revolution has meant that IT shifted from being an enabler to becoming more of an innovation driver for businesses. Technology has ceased being a CIO-only conversation and graduated to the board rooms. A number of organizations are playing catchup in the adoption of digital technologies to ensure they are able to compete. Right now, they are limited by their current IT estates and its inability to keep up with the cutting-edge technologies.

The answer to this complex situation is Modernization - organizations must modernize in order to stay relevant and become responsive in a resilient manner. While this answer is obvious, a number of IT leaders shy away from undertaking this journey as they find it to be a chasm too wide to cross.

The Labyrinth

In Greek mythology, the Labyrinth was an elaborate, confusing structure built by Daedalus for King Minos of Crete. It was designed to hold the Minotaur - a monster that was eventually killed by the hero, Theseus. Daedalus had so cunningly devised the Labyrinth that he could barely escape it after he built it.

I believe the situation faced by large organizations today is no different from the Labyrinth built by Daedalus. While modernization of the IT estate is the obvious answer for organizations to remain competitive, CIOs and CTOs hesitate due to the complex maze of their legacy systems. Modernization of the estate effectively means having to wade through this, with multiple challenges coming to the fore as they start navigating.

While a number of risks and issues worry them, such as talent availability, clarity on transformation goals, and investment required, the single most inhibiting factor is the fear of business disruption during the transformation exercise. However, since they cannot afford to do nothing, a number of initiatives get kicked off to try and solve specific problems which may not necessarily achieve the desired outcomes. 

So how do organizations modernize legacy systems? How do they make sure that the disruption remains minimal while maximizing performance for their applications? Well, the answer lies in adopting a modernization strategy which reduces the business disruption to near zero; something that we at Infosys have been helping organizations with. Infosys's Zero Disruption Modernization approach aims to help our clients achieve their modernization objective by carefully laying down the path needed to navigate the complex maze.

The Path

If we knew the path (strategy) to be taken to exit the labyrinth (goal of modernization) or if we had a guide who has done it before, I am sure everyone would be all the more confident about getting into the maze. That is where we can help - The Zero Disruption Modernization approach from Infosys helps organizations move from their Current mode of Operations (CMO) to their Future Mode of Operations (FMO) through a series of steps.

Infosys does not treat Modernization as an Engineering project where a system under consideration goes through a technology shift. The modernization exercise is driven more holistically, starting with the selection of an appropriate technology strategy, depending on the organization’s context and risk appetite going all the way to value realization and articulation of benefits.

Modernization initiatives also need to consider the co-existence of the current state and the modernized state as the modernized estate gets implemented incrementally. It’s equally important to leverage the opportunity during modernization to upskill the workforce and implement a robust shared digital infrastructure and engineering practice. This is achieved through the micro change framework, which follows an approach of implementing routine+1 .

 The key solution tenets to achieve a Zero Disruption Modernization are:

·      Transparency to the end clients: Requires no changes to any systems or applications outside the system being modernized, ensuring end clients interfacing systems continue to access and operate as usual. The changes in the User experience are rolled out with a carefully crafted Organization Change Management (OCM) process.

·      Data-First Approach: Unlocked data on the modernized platform to serve as a bridge for the transitional dual-state environment and for early insights. The 2-way synch transitionary state provides significant flexibility in terms of being able to sequence business functionality deployments.

·      Dual Mode Co-Existence: Ability to route traffic to the legacy or the modernized estate seamlessly and at the flick of a switch.

·      Flexible Capability Activation: To minimize the risk of migration both from a functionality perspective as well as from the end-client perspective. This provides a much-needed option to modularly enable and disable modernized functionality.

·      No Business Disruptions: Dovetail business operations into a dual-mode landscape. Thinking business ops right from the start ensures the right levels of training and continuity are considered for the co-existent world.

·      Toolsets: Modernization framework accelerators (eg: Infosys Modernization suite)

·      Ways of working: Process harmonization and ways of working alignment across transformation tracks & the BAU world, ensuring no ‘loss in translation’ as the organization makes the shift to the new world order.

The Goal

Apart from setting the path to get to the goal, Infosys’ Zero Disruption Modernization approach ensures that the modernization is not limited to only a tech perspective; the entire organization gets modernized and stays modern. The platform-led modernization focuses on building a future-proof, cloud-enabled architecture focusing on all layers viz. user experience, business processes, external/internal application interface, data management and integration, co-existence of legacy, and modernized systems (if necessary). The initiative is designed to achieve a harmonized way of working across legacy and modernized systems. Throughout the process, micro change management gets applied at every layer to ensure consistent and stable end-to-end user journey and flow.

At the core of the modernization, we have tools and platforms around agile methodologies, DevSecOps, technology migration, and cloud to accelerate the modernization process and reduce overall time to market.

“The Forrester WaveTM: Application Modernization and Migration Services, Q3 2021” report recognized Infosys as a good fit for most modernization and migration needs of an enterprise. The ranking as a Leader came after receiving the highest score possible in the service capabilities, execution roadmap, performance, and investments in training and skilling criteria.

Infosys was also ranked as a Leader in the evaluation of Infosys Cobalt in The Forrester WaveTM: Multicloud Managed Services Providers, Q4 2020, which was released last year. We believe these positions as a leader show how Infosys has been consistently scaling the peak in the ratings from the independent research firm.

If the last two years taught businesses anything, it’s that they need to up their game when it comes to technology. From architectures to processes, everything needs to be updated to cater to sustainability and resiliency. And that’s why I believe modernization is critical for every business. It’s a key step in standing the test of time while peaking on performance, agility, and productivity.