Utbenat: Legacy

Introduction – "The Beast" in the corner

Sebastian:

‍Imagine stepping into a large factory hall. There's a faint smell of warm oil and metal. Along the walls stand row after row of new, shiny machines. They have touchscreens, blinking LED lights, and are controlled with an app. They look like the future.

But in the far corner, where the lighting is a bit dimmer, stands the one. The staff call it "The Beast". It's big, it's beige-grey, and it looks like it belongs in a museum. The newly hired engineers walk past and wrinkle their noses. They whisper to each other: "Why do we still have that piece of junk? Shouldn't we just haul it to the dump?"

But the shop foreman... she just smiles. Because she knows something they don't. She knows that no machine can do anything until The Beast has done its part – they all depend on that machine grinding away. Thump, thump, thump. Around the clock. That machine is what pays everyone's salaries.

Judging it by its surface and writing it off as "old junk" would be a mistake that could cost the company its life.

Today we're going to talk about The Beast in the corner. We're going to talk about legacy. A word often used as an insult in IT, synonymous with "old and expensive". But if we're being honest, it's often the backbone of your entire business. We'll break down why you shouldn't rip it out just because it's old, and how to manage it smartly to build the future.

When does the inheritance become a barrier?

Sebastian:

‍Legacy really just means "inheritance". It's the technology we carry with us from yesterday. Many leaders and engineers are drawn to the idea of "greenfield" – getting to tear out everything old and tangled and start over on a blank page. But, just as the foreman knows, a system doesn't become bad just because it has a few years behind it.

It only becomes a problem when it starts holding the business back. When you want to launch a new service, or give your customers a modern experience, and The Beast in the corner says: "No, I don't understand any of that". That's when, and only then, we need to talk about replacing it. Not because it's ugly, but because it's standing in the way of the business.

Business value as your compass

Sebastian:

‍So we don't replace systems because the IT department thinks new technology is fun. We replace them because the business has expectations the system can no longer meet.

Let's take a classic example. Say you sell complex products, perhaps pumps or ventilation systems. You want to give your customers the ability to configure their own product on your website – choosing size, capacity, and accessories – and get a price instantly.

The marketing department is pushing for it because customers are asking for it. But... the logic for how these pumps can be built, which parts fit with which, is buried deep inside your old ERP system, in a product configuration module. Your ERP system is fundamentally built to keep track of the financials, not to power a fast and slick e-commerce experience. Here, "The Beast" – your ERP – becomes a bottleneck. The business wants to run, but the system says "no".

The tactic: carving out the logic

Sebastian:

‍The traditional mistake here is to think: "Well, if the ERP system can't handle e-commerce, we'll have to replace the whole ERP system." That's a project that takes years, costs millions, and risks slowing down the entire company.

Think instead: can we carve the problem out? Instead of forcing the old system to do something it's not good at, we lift the logic out. We build a separate, modern "configurator service" alongside it. It handles the rules and the pricing toward the customer. The old ERP only needs to receive the finished order when the customer hits buy. We've solved the business problem now, without having to fully replace a system that is the heart of the company.

The example: the supplier portal – preparing for the replacement

Sebastian:

‍Let's take another example where we can be smart about the future. Imagine you're a retailer with tens of thousands of products. You have an old Product Information Management system (PIM) that's on its last legs. It's slow and clunky. Today, your product managers receive Excel files by email from suppliers and key the data into the old system manually. It's inefficient, and sometimes errors creep in.

The plan is to replace the PIM system in two years. But you have data quality problems now. Instead of waiting, you can build a supplier portal. A modern web service where suppliers log in themselves and upload their products, their images, and their copy. The portal makes sure the data is correct before passing it on into your existing, slightly tired, PIM system.

What have we gained? We've solved the immediate problem: manual handling and the poor data that comes with it. But the clever part is what happens in two years. When the time comes to replace the old PIM system, you won't have to wrangle with your suppliers. They're already working in the new portal. They won't even notice you swapping out the engine in the background.

By separating the collection of data from the storage of data, you've turned the future mega-project into a simpler maneuver with fewer moving parts.

The roadmap and the castle floors

Sebastian:

‍So what did we actually do in these two examples? Instead of attacking "The Beast" head-on and trying to replace the whole thing, we carved out specific pieces. We isolated the price configurator and we isolated the supplier data collection. We used modern technology to solve the business problem here and now, while reducing the complexity of the old systems. This is about having a roadmap, a strategic map.

Imagine you're in charge of renovating an enormous castle. One of the biggest projects is sanding and re-lacquering all the magnificent wooden floors. It's a job that will take several years to fully complete. If you don't have a plan for the order in which to take the rooms, you risk ending up in a situation where you've just finished a floor in a corridor – only to realize you now have to drag heavy sanding machines and stomp around in dirty work boots across the freshly lacquered floor to reach the next room.

That's exactly what we want to avoid. By carving out parts of our old systems in a deliberate way, we make sure we're preparing the path ahead. We sand the floors in the right order so we don't destroy what we've already built when the next big phase of the project kicks off.

Concrete action: how to start on Monday

Sebastian:

‍Here's how you can start on Monday. Identify one area where you feel today's technology is blocking a good idea. It could be a customer portal, a better onboarding process, or a price configurator. Ask yourselves: "Do we need to replace the whole system to solve this, or can we carve out just this one function and build it in a way that works both today and in the future?"

By starting to "nibble" at your old systems from the outside, you reduce risk and increase the speed of your business development. You start building the new, without having to replace the whole Beast at once.

Summary

Sebastian:

‍To sum up: legacy is the inheritance that keeps the business alive, but it must not become a bottleneck. Don't replace it because it's old – replace it because it's holding the business back, and do it by carving out pieces in a smart order. Plan your route through the castle so you don't step on your own progress.

Thanks for listening to today's episode of Utbenat! If you'd like to talk more about today's topic, or just talk data, reach out to us – you'll find us on LinkedIn. Or contact us through our website, fiwe.com – with a double u. Take care out there, and we'll talk soon!

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