IT Modernization Strategies to Revamp Your Software in 2024

5 min readJul 22, 2024

Legacy app modernization is a crucial investment in your business continuity, where you upgrade outdated systems to modern standards that will retain your competitive advantage.

Slower software response, insufficient functionality reported by customers, and inconvenient workflows overwhelming your staff — these are the signs your operations need legacy app modernization.

In the context of software, the term legacy refers to outdated systems that no longer fulfill your operational goals and, most importantly, have lost their sustainable competitive advantage. Upgrading applications allows organizations to streamline and secure core tasks like payments and data processing, reducing infrastructure costs and optimizing resource allocation.

By adopting legacy modernization trends, Acropolium clients and partners turn their software into scalable and compliant tools for business success. In this post, we want to dig deeper into the popular ways of amping up your current tech asset to stay ahead of the competition with top-notch customer experience.

Application Upgrade Market and App Modernization Trends

The legacy application modernization market has grown significantly and is expected to grow from $17.8 billion in 2023 at a CAGR of 16.7%.

Legacy software modernization trends have gained significant traction. The global modernization services market, valued at $17.8B in 2023, is estimated to grow at a 16.7% CAGR. Companies apply different methods and technologies to modernize their system, which may include:

Code updates and third-party frameworks to prevent vulnerabilities by ensuring all software updates and patches are installed. It’s recommended to utilize the latest versions or replace outdated libraries with more recent ones, utilizing the facade pattern to avoid extensive code rewriting.
Stronger authentication methods, such as multi-factor and biometric authentication, reduce the risk of hacking.
Containerization is used by 88% of IT companies to virtualize data and make applications more portable. This facilitates easier deployment, creates predictable environments, and reduces debugging time.
CI/CD integration is employed to improve code philosophy, which, followed by automated testing, ensures interoperability across multiple CI/CD tools.
The DevOps approach enhances product quality and user experience by fostering close collaboration across the product lifecycle. DevOps engineers ensure continuous communication and smooth process execution.
Automation and monitoring is another legacy modernization strategy that optimizes CI/CD processes, microservices, and information exchange.
Improving mobile experience can significantly boost revenue and user engagement.
A/B testing allows businesses to compare user responses to different features to identify the most effective changes.
Feedback analysis combines public reviews with A/B testing to gather comprehensive insights for modernization.
Building AI chatbots that, despite development complexity, can boost sales and efficiency.
Migration to the cloud is a crucial step to speed up information exchange, prevent security breaches, and facilitate data transfer and processing. At the same time, cloud architecture improves third-party software integration.

Why Invest in Legacy Application Modernization?

By implementing advanced IT modernization strategies, businesses can optimize their workflows with automation features and adopt cutting-edge technologies like AI and ML to sharpen their competitive edge.

Creating brand-new software is costly, time-intensive, and frequently impractical. Therefore, companies opt to modernize their existing software, incorporating new features to sustain efficiency, customer loyalty, and profitability.

Cost Savings and Improved Efficiency

Modern technologies require less hardware and energy, reducing expenses. Plus, legacy software modernization reduces maintenance and update resources, leading to faster processing times and more efficient workflows.

Scalability and Tech Competitiveness

Modernized systems easily scale to address increasing workloads and user demands, offering flexibility for business expansion. The best thing is, they support integration of advanced tech practices such as AI/ML algorithms. With 65% of organizations using generative AI, modernizing software to incorporate AI capabilities is crucial to stay competitive and retain clients.

Advanced Cybersecurity

Modern software protects against vulnerabilities and cyber threats, ensuring better data protection and compliance. Ensure outsourcing vendors follow current cybersecurity practices.

How to Modernize Legacy Applications: When to Upgrade?

Before embarking on modernization techniques, it is crucial to verify the status of your software to ensure it is genuinely outdated. Often, a simple self-assessment regarding your satisfaction with the application is enough to understand if it’s time for legacy app modernization.

Poor Performance

If you, your employees, and your customers struggle with the app and request significant changes, modernization is needed. For example, one of our medical business clients found their medical app inefficient in delivering user-friendly and secure services to their customers.

We improved customer loyalty by 38% by modernizing its app’s architecture and leveraging HIPAA-compliant security features. As a result, the company reduced its IT budget by 40%.

Incorrect Functionality

If the system fails to meet its original goals and user needs, it requires an overhaul. Consider modernization if your software:

Doesn’t support integrations and other vendors
Offers no updates
Has unresolved security issues
Is based on an obsolete operating system
Cannot be scaled.

Another client of ours faced such issues: their single-tenant hotel software was not enough to cover modern traveler needs. The company needed to switch to multi-tenancy while running on outdated software.

We assisted in transforming a single server-based application into a cloud-based management system, which reduced costs by 40% increased the annual profits by 30%

Need for Replacement

Suppose your customers find the product slow and hard to navigate while your employees frequently complain or don’t understand its purpose. Then, it’s a direct sign you need to invest in current applications modernization. The same goes for when manual alternatives are preferred over the app and the cost outweighs its benefits.

Another successful application modernization example: for an automotive company, we enhanced the in-house team’s tech knowledge by selecting the right tech stack to fill functionality gaps. Thus, we created a data-driven SaaS audit platform that reduced bottlenecks by 90% and improved security by 40%.

Final Words

IT modernization strategies aim to enhance business efficiency and help your operations get back on track in the highly competitive environment. While some app modernization trends are simple to implement, others require professional assistance.

Over the past decade, Acropolium has successfully modernized 58 software solutions for companies across industries. Our portfolio demonstrates our capability to handle all aspects of legacy software needs, from auditing and consulting to full system modernization.