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“They must have an app for that”.

Not something I used to say or think a few short years ago, but these days when I want to do something like sending flowers, book a tennis court or order some food, one of the first things I do is look for an app that can help me.

Like it or not, part of the digital world has been the cultivation of an app-driven culture. Apps literally live in the palm of your hand (your phone) and enable less “techy people” to host live video calls with friends and family across all continents or aggregate news on their favourite topics from every major publisher and broadcaster.

If your company is not modernising the applications your staff and customers use, then your organisation will be left behind. There is no “if” about this, the only question is “when”.

If you are unconvinced, look at some of the wreckage we have seen in recent years of companies that didn’t ride the transformation wave fast enough. Nokia who didn’t see that data would become more important than voice, Kodak who didn’t feel that digital would replace analogue film and Blockbuster who didn’t see fast enough that streaming would decimate their market.

Legacy applications may “do the job” but they don’t “meet the expectation” of the app-driven culture.

Both staff and customers want convenience, they want to access from anywhere, they want a great user experience, they want to access applications from any device wherever they are and they expect security to be uncompromising.

Legacy apps don’t meet a lot of these expectations and they can hold your business back in other ways too.

Stifle Innovation

Legacy applications are harder to upgrade and evolve, big changes come with risks and these risks can be a factor in deciding not to update and add new functions. In a world that moves at break-neck speed, the biggest risk can be not innovating.

Slow Down Progress

Modern applications can be developed quickly, new release cycles can be over days and weeks, rather than weeks or months. If you don’t modernise, your competitors will outpace you.

Maximise ROI

Modernised apps are cheaper to maintain and develop, the ROI is clear.

Retain Staff and Customers

Your customers and staff want the same experience when they interface with your business as the apps they use in their personal life. Companies that have antiquated interfaces lose customers fast.

For established companies, they can’t just switch off their legacy applications and start again. The years of development can’t be thrown away. Solid applications need to be modernised but the challenge of doing so can be daunting.

Using technologies like containerisation, cloud and virtualisation IBM Cloud Pak® provides the tools and technology to accelerate and de-risk the whole process of application modernisation. You can find out more about it here.

By combining many years of hands-on experience with cutting edge modern infrastructure technology IBM Cloud Pak® for applications is helping companies today avoid the dilemma of being held back by legacy applications.

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