We’re in the third episode of an six-part series, looking at why application modernization projects fail. Our first episode covered the main reasons that business executives indicated why their app modernization projects fail. For a recap of our first episode, please visit: Why App Modernization Projects Fail Series – Ep 1 Overview.
Today we’re discussing the costs and schedules of typical app modernization projects and how these can lead to project failures. In a survey conducted by Wakefield Research in 2022, they indicated that almost three-quarters of respondents (74%) say that the typical application modernization effort costs $1M+, averaging nearly $1.5M. Beyond the huge financial cost is time. Nearly 3 in 5 (58%) software and architecture leaders say the typical app modernization effort takes over a year, averaging 16 months per project—more than a quarter (27%) say it takes two years or more. So why are these projects so costly and why do they take so long to complete?
Let’s look at the components of a typical application modernization effort and what drives the cost and schedule of a project. There are several factors that go into determining the overall cost of an app modernization project including: application size, application complexity, integrations with current systems, reporting, user interface updates, and data migration.
Application Size
The larger the application is, the more work is required to redevelop it, and the more it will typically cost. Software size can be measured in pages/screens or lines of code. Every time a user clicks a button, a menu option, or a link, they are often taken to a different page. So, for instance, the user profile and the page where the user edits their profile are classified as two different screens. A small application may contain 10 to 25 pages, a medium app may have 30 to 60, and a large enterprise application may have 100 to 150 pages easily. Using traditional app modernization techniques, application size makes up about 30%, on average, of the total cost of the project.
Application Complexity
Application complexity refers to the software’s business logic, its architecture, the amount of analysis tasks it performs, conversions, scoring, number crunching, the number of nuances and permutations in the code, and so on. Using a traditional, labor-based approach to app modernization, this complexity impacts how long it takes to upgrade the solution. Furthermore, additional application complexity means additional testing. It takes longer to test the application using a traditional approach, because the QA team needs to account for all the possible variables in the application’s performance and functionality. Using traditional app modernization techniques, application complexity makes up about 25%, on average, of the total cost of the project.
Integrations
The challenge with integrations in app modernization projects is the new application needs a full set of completely tested APIs to support any of the integrations with existing systems, which can add a significant workload for the app modernization team. To avoid business disruption, these integrations must be redeveloped and tested as part of the app modernization effort, typically lengthening the overall project schedule. Of course, the cost and duration of upgrading the integrations depends on their number and complexity. Furthermore, the app modernization team may not be as familiar with the way some third-party software processes and exchanges data. They may require extra time and resources to determine how best to approach the integration to ensure it functions correctly. Using traditional app modernization techniques, upgrading the integrations can comprise, on average, 10% to 20% of the total cost of the project.
Reporting
Upgrading the reports and reporting capability for an app modernization project is similar to upgrading the integrations. If the reports were written against the APIs, then the upgrade in the integration may address the reporting requirements but our experience with legacy software systems is that this is often not the case. If reports were written directly against the database, whether the transactional database or a reporting data warehouse, these will need to be rewritten against a secure set of APIs. To avoid business disruption, these reports must be redeveloped and tested as part of the app modernization effort, typically lengthening the overall project schedule.
User Interface
The development of a new user interface can be relatively straightforward or reasonably involved depending on how much the team wants to change the UI. Many firms want to build a modernized application with similar user experience and page flow. The reasoning makes sense – they state, “our business users are familiar with the workflow of the legacy application, if we change the user experience too much, we will need to retrain the business users”. A different approach could be to redesign the user experience to make it more intuitive, requiring much less training. Furthermore, adding digital adoption tooling to the modernized application such as Appcues, User Pilot, and What Fix, can greatly improve user adoption and shorten onboarding time. The effort and duration associated with redesigning the user interface can vary significantly. Using traditional app modernization techniques, upgrading the UI can comprise, on average, 20% to 40% of the total cost of the project.
Data Migration
Data migration is often the task that is left to the end, unfortunately. Data migration can also be relatively straight forward or incredibly complex depending on how different the data schema is in the new modernized application. Data migration is also often the phase that involves the most risk in the project because it involves data. No organization wants data loss or data leakage as a result of an app modernization effort, so significant amounts of testing are generally required to ensure an accurate and complete migration of the data. Using traditional app modernization techniques, data migration can make up anywhere from 5% to as much as 30% of the total cost of the project.
Aspen Warp Drive Engine™
What if you could avoid all the pitfalls of a traditional app modernization effort? For example, what if the application size or complexity didn’t significantly impact the cost or duration of the project? What if the integration and reporting needs of the modernized application were solved quickly and easily? What if the user interface was created programmatically as part of the modernization process which then could be tweaked and stylized to your needs? And finally, what if you could avoid data migration all together? In fact, you can achieve all of these using Aspen’s new app modernization solution.
Aspen has developed a revolutionary technology for app modernization projects called the Warp Drive Engine™. Aspen’s Warp Drive Engine™ was built to resolve technical debt issues and modernize software applications quickly while addressing all cybersecurity needs of the legacy application. Our Warp Drive Development Engine™ can shorten an app modernization project from months or years to days or weeks and produce a hardened and standardized application ready for innovation.
Using traditional app modernization techniques, the benefit to effort curve looks like the blue line in the figure below. The project team forecasts a straight-line correlation between the benefits achieved and the level of effort spent. But due to the uncertainty and variability cited above, this line is rarely straight. Rather, the effort continues while the benefits reach a point of dismissing returns. This is why business and IT leaders are so cautious when it comes to app modernization projects because the cost and schedule of the project is almost always more than what was budgeted. Plus, as the duration increases, so does the risk. For mission critical applications, risk is something that business and IT leaders want to minimize or eliminate. This is why certain mission-critical app modernization projects, that should have been completed years ago, are still sitting on the drawing board. Using Aspen’s Warp Drive Engine™ for your app modernization project, the benefit to effort curve is much steeper providing you significantly more benefit in a much shorter period of time. If you would like to learn more about our solutions, contact us at info@aspeness.com or visit our website at www.aspeness.com.
Todd Ingersoll
With over 20 years of experience serving multiple roles inside successful enterprise software and services organizations, Todd has been expressly interested in successfully overcoming app modernization challenges. His first-hand experience and dissatisfaction with the limitations and business impact of the traditional options of application modernization led him to create Aspen ESS. Aspen ESS was created to give organizations rapid, reliable, scalable, and extendable solutions to challenges with legacy software products and portfolios.
