Application modernisation services
Outdated applications stunt your business’s growth
If your existing IT systems were custom-built 15+ years ago, you’re probably struggling to adopt new technologies today. What’s more, the outdated platform you’re relying on accrues more technical debt each day, resulting in:
Rising maintenance costs
Data security risks
Service outages
You’re left with a serious business challenge—and an overstretched IT team that’s constantly fighting fires.
Benefits of application modernisation
Solve technical issues and trigger new business growth
Your IT infrastructure is the engine that drives your whole organisation. Modernisation gets you in the fast lane again, empowering your enterprise to collaborate and serve customers effectively.
Enable new innovation
By moving to a modern open-source platform, you can open up your systems to a wide range of APIs and integrations. It’s the first step in creating modern digital services—or adopting new technologies like Generative AI.
Resolve technical debt
Outdated systems often suffer from improper code, bugs, poor-quality design, and missing documentation. Modernisation involves assessing how your system works and resolving these issues, ultimately making your system stable and scalable.
Future-proof your systems
When your application is built on an outdated platform, it becomes almost like a ticking time bomb—and maintaining it is costly. Moving to a modern platform guarantees excellent functionality for at least the next 10 years, along with affordable, on-demand support.
Protect your data
Your IT infrastructure becomes more stable after modernisation, empowering you to mitigate data risks and comply with security and privacy regulations. Modernisation also lets you access a greater range of security, monitoring, and cloud storage systems.
Software modernisation processes
A multi-phased approach to safe, successful modernisation
Legacy modernisation is complicated, and there’s a lot that can go wrong. Most of our app modernisation projects involve the following steps:
1. Legacy assessment
to determine what your application’s current state is
For most custom-built IT systems, your original developers are long gone—and your team has a sparse understanding of the code they created. We start with a full legacy assessment, reverse-engineering code when necessary. At the end of the process, we’ll understand:
How does the app help business goals/processes?
What’s the quality of the app from a technical standpoint?
Project roadmapping
to ensure smooth delivery
Thorough planning helps us get to the right project milestones, in the right order. We provide a project roadmap optimised to deliver the highest business value in the shortest timescales, minimising risk at every step.
3. Proof-of-concept testing
to validate bright ideas
When replicating or moving important layers of your application, it’s vital to know that everything will function correctly. Where appropriate, we test ‘light’ versions of the updated application with your data to confirm that all plans are viable.
Phased modernisation
to protect your business continuity
Doing an all-in-one ‘big bang’ changeover puts your data at risk. We migrate your application in phases, allowing for effective modernisation without disturbing day-to-day business.
Talk to the UK’s leading modernisation consultants.
Application modernisation trends
How modern businesses are getting more value from their existing infrastructures
Your outdated application is an asset, and modernisation gives you multiple ways to increase the return on your investment. Today, many businesses modernise with specific digital transformation goals in mind:
Move to the cloud
Switching from on-premises to cloud hosting (or a hybrid of both) gives you more ways to collaborate, while also enabling new digital services. Cloud application modernisation makes your IT systems more scalable, more flexible, and arguably more secure. What’s more, moving to the cloud can help you adopt cloud native applications into your systems quickly and easily.
Adopt microservices architecture
By updating your monolithic application to a modular format, you enable your IT team to make small improvements without disrupting the overall IT infrastructure. The result is that you can update, maintain, and scale your application in multiple ways at the same time, significantly increasing business agility.
Enable API integration
Legacy applications are often built on ‘closed’ platforms that can’t connect with new services via API. By switching to a modern platform, you can more easily integrate a wide range of tools and services, future-proofing your application.
Talk to the UK’s leading modernisation consultants.
Application modernisation strategies
Find the right path to modernisation
While no two modernisation projects are the same, they typically involve one of the following strategies:
Re-hosting or ‘Lift and shift’
This strategy helps you move to a new hosting environment without changing your underlying architecture or codebase. It’s often used to move from on-premise hosting to the cloud, and it’s ideal when you need fast migration. It’s also a suitable solution for government organisations who need mainframe modernisation.
Containerisation
This process allows you to encapsulate an application in a ‘virtual server’, using technologies like Docker or Kubernetes. This allows you to run the application in a computing environment that it wouldn’t otherwise be compatible with. By containerising your application, you can successfully move it to a cloud platform like Microsoft Azure.
Application facelift
If the application’s workflows are functioning well but the system is ugly or difficult to use, it’s time for a UX design rework. In this scenario, we keep the existing business logic but overhaul the system’s front end.
Re-factoring
This strategy involves making significant changes to your application’s code. This is ideal when you want your application to behave in the same way, but you need to improve its structure, design, or architecture.
Rewriting
If the application’s code is problematic and full of technical debt, developers may deem it necessary to rewrite it from scratch. This is arguably not modernisation, but the development of a brand new system.
Why choose Griffiths Waite?
Get expert help from one of the UK’s leading application modernisation providers
Legacy modernisation is complicated, and there’s a lot that can go wrong. Most of our app modernisation projects involve the following steps:
No-stress partner
We’re one of the UK’s leading enterprise developers, with over 30 years of experience in software modernisation and application development.
Reliable on-shore support
Unlike many vendors, we don’t outsource to off-shore contractors. Our team is made up of permanent UK staff, so your development team will be around for years to come.
Close collaboration
We love collaborating with our clients. Meet us face-to-face at our headquarters in Birmingham or on-site at your offices anywhere in the UK, or work with us remotely.
Application modernisation technologies
Bridging the gap between old and new systems
Legacy platforms we modernise from:
Oracle Forms
PL/SQL
Oracle SOA
Oracle ADF
Oracle JET
Modern platforms we build on:
Open Source
Microsoft TypeScript
Kubernetes
Microsoft Azure
Programming languages:
React
Node.js
Case Studies
See how software modernisation transforms organisations
Get in touch
Talk to the UK’s leading modernisation consultants
FAQs
How can managed app modernisation boost my ROI?
Reducing maintenance costs
With outdated platforms, you’re typically putting out fires, fixing malfunctioning code, or paying extra for specialised support. Modernisation resolves your technical debt and reduces your maintenance requirements to a fraction of what they previously were.
Increasing productivity
Application modernisation gives you new possibilities to connect, streamline, and automate workflows. For example, when working with British insurer LV=, we reduced the steps in its workflows by 75%. This reduced its labour costs, contributing to greater profitability and improved competitive positioning.
Identifying bottlenecks and opportunities
Modernisation gives you the opportunity to introduce the latest analytics technologies to your infrastructure. With improved visibility over what’s happening in your business, you can see where processes are slowing down—and find out how to serve customers better.
Enable innovation
Modernisation enables you to adopt new technologies, such as the latest Generative AI tools. From here, you can create new digital, web-optimised services, giving your customers the flexible and convenient experiences they need.
Is it possible to modernise a legacy app with no detailed documentation (functional specifications)?
Yes, it’s possible to modernise a legacy app with no documentation if you reverse-engineer the code. By extracting the business logic in the existing IT system, you can determine its capabilities and the opportunities for modernisation.
This is a fairly common scenario, and something that Griffiths Waite has completed with many clients. While reverse-engineering code is complex, we use automation to simplify and accelerate the process.
How does cloud computing impact application modernisation strategies?
Moving applications to the cloud is often—but not always—a part of application modernisation. Many companies want to take advantage of the services that come packaged with cloud platforms. These services typically include AI, business intelligence, security, and monitoring tools.
In addition, cloud application modernisation offers some other clear advantages:
Improved data capabilities
Cloud hosting offers convenient (and cost-effective) ways to capture, store, and share data.
Remote access
Cloud hosting also makes it easier for employees and customers to access your services from a greater range of locations and devices.
Lower maintenance costs
On-site data storage is expensive and complex, and moving to the cloud greatly reduces your maintenance requirements.
How do application modernisation services enhance business agility?
Markets change quickly today, and your business needs to be able to adapt quickly. Modernising your existing IT systems helps in several ways:
Make changes faster
Modernised applications typically use microservices architecture. The application is essentially broken down into smaller components—making it easier to update or change parts of it without affecting the rest.
Scale easily
When your customer base or workload changes, this affects the demands on your system. Modern applications can scale up and down more easily, helping you operate cost-effectively.
Provide better user experience
With modern architecture, you integrate with other systems and services to deliver a superior user experience. For example, you can make your organisation’s services available on new apps and platforms that your customers are adopting.
