Legacy systems: How being trapped in an old system brings your profits down

Reliability of systems and having established processes make your business feel resilient and stable. But we are creatures of habit. Sometimes we over-rely on certain habits, trying to cling to stability and things we are sure that worked so far. Change is difficult for most people. However, legacy IT system which are outdated, often decades-old, can hinder an organisation's agility. The longer you wait to implement change, the more risky and expensive it gets.

The agility costs of legacy systems

The illusion of comfort is a barrier to progress in a fast-paced market. Several aspects of legacy systems need to be taken into account:

• Slow adaptation: Legacy applications were not built for modern needs, making even minor changes or new features painfully slow. Organisations report that supposedly "simple" feature updates can take six months on a legacy platform, whereas more agile competitors can launch enhancements in weeks.

• High maintenance, low innovation: Legacy technology demands extensive maintenance. Patching outdated code, manual workarounds, and firefighting issues. This drives resources from innovations. Studies find 60-70% of IT budgets are swallowed just to keep older systems running. Instead of building new capabilities, engineers spend time maintaining ageing infrastructure, creating frustration and "technical debt".

• Operational friction: Legacy platforms tend to be siloed and inefficient, slowing down everyday work. For example, if generating a new business report or consolidating data across departments requires tedious manual steps, it hinders a company's responsiveness. This leads to stale or incomplete data, hurting the ability to react swiftly to trends.

• Risk and rigidity: Over time, old systems become brittle "black boxes". Few experts fully understand them, and any change entails the risk of breaking core operations. This rigidity makes teams afraid to change anything, creating a paralysis where needed updates are deferred year after year.

Rigid systems in times of change

How much a legacy system hurts is mostly felt during rapid changes or economic stress. A business needs to respond quickly with pricing updates, new products, process changes, and more… If you want it to survive. The old systems can't keep up with this.

During sudden inflation or supply disruptions, companies with legacy systems struggle to adjust. A study found that 57% of companies need over a month to implement a pricing change in response to a market shift, whereas only 43% can do it within a week.

Legacy constraints also impede reporting speed when it is most needed. Imagine an enterprise trying to rapidly generate new financial reports or analyses during an economic slowdown: if data resides in legacy silos or the reporting tool is outdated, getting critical insights may be very slow. You ask: "How long would it take us to launch a new report or integrate a needed tool?" If the answer is "weeks or months", your company could be flying blind in a crisis.

The contrast between organisations is stark: those stuck on legacy technology find themselves vulnerable and unable to change under pressure, whereas those with flexible modern systems can capitalise on new opportunities.

Gradual change can be a solution

With the challenges mentioned above, replacement of legacy systems might seem like an obvious fix, but a tedious one. However, the approach to this is crucial because sudden changes without preparation might cause more harm than good. Downtime or operational upheaval is required and can fail to deliver expected benefits if something goes wrong.

Gradual, phased modernisation is a safer and more practical path. Rather than abandoning legacy platforms overnight, companies are increasingly modernising in increments.

Upgrading in modules: Instead of a full rewrite, replace or enhance specific functions step-by-step. For example, a company might modernise one component at a time, like the finance module this quarter, inventory management next. These modular upgrades let you target high-impact areas first, while the rest of the system continues to operate.

Risk management and quick wins: By modernising in phases, organisations can reduce risk and also continuously demonstrate value to stakeholders. Each small modernisation step can deliver a tangible improvement: faster performance, new capabilities, cost savings.

Selective AI adoption

This is one of the most exciting things about today's technology. Old legacy systems can be augmented with new capabilities, like artificial intelligence, without fully replacing those systems. By using selective AI tools for search, triage, forecasting, and more, companies can reduce friction and boost efficiency on top of their legacy infrastructure.

Some effective uses of AI in legacy environments include:

• Intelligent data search & extraction: AI-powered tools like natural language processing can read and structure data from PDFs, reports, or databases that legacy systems produce. By doing so, AI essentially breaks down data silos - enabling fast search and retrieval of information that previously required manual digging.

• Automation & triage: AI and machine learning can handle repetitive tasks and initial triage that legacy systems don't support well. A classic example is using AI for support ticket triage, reading incoming customer support requests and routing them to the appropriate department automatically.

• Forecasting and decision support: By applying modern AI analytics on data exported from legacy systems, organisations can get forward-looking insights that legacy tools could never provide. Machine learning models can analyse historical data to generate forecasts, detect patterns, or provide alerts for irregularities.

AI provides practical solutions to enhance legacy systems without the cost or risk of complete replacement, allowing enterprises to reclaim lost efficiency while preserving their existing investments.

Conclusion: Modernise

Outdated legacy systems can severely slow down an enterprise's ability to adapt, making every change effort more costly, risky, and time-consuming than it should be. In an economy where adaptability is often the key to survival, such rigidity is a serious liability.

Through phased modernisation, API integration, and targeted AI enhancements, organisations can evolve their systems safely while steadily reducing friction. This is where having the right partner can make all the difference. Appify Digital is ready to help organisations navigate this journey, bringing expertise in modernising legacy platforms without disrupting the business. With a thoughtful, step-by-step approach, even the most entrenched legacy systems can be transformed into flexible, future-ready assets.

Appify Digital is a leading web and mobile app development company in Dublin, serving clients across Ireland and the UK. We specialize in creating innovative, AI-powered solutions that deliver exceptional user experiences and drive business growth.