Switching software architectures, like the current move from web-based enterprise architectures to SaaS, can cause significant cost and disruption. How can companies avoid the increased total cost of ownership and reduced ROI during these transitions? Learn how low-code platforms help eliminate the need to repeat the rip-and-replace cycle as computing paradigms evolve.
Please enjoy the summary* below. For the full research, please visit our sponsor Aras (registration required).
Table of Contents
- Continuous IT Architectural Transition
- Impact on Software ROI and TCO
- Impact on People, Process, and Technology
- Changing the Status Quo
- Plan for the Future
- Acknowledgments
Introduction
The Evolution of Software Architectures Impacts ROI
Software architectures have changed dramatically over the last several decades as the industry has evolved, innovated, and matured. These technological advances come in “waves” that improve the value of computing by unlocking new capabilities and improving the efficiency of how applications are delivered.
In the long run, new architectures increase the value software provides and drives computing cost down. Greater benefits at lower costs lead to increased software return on investment (ROI). Technology architecture transitions, however, come at a cost. They drive the total cost of ownership (TCO) higher, at least for a while. Although the resulting computing paradigm may be more efficient, migration typically causes significant disruption and decreases the ROI as companies move from existing applications. In the short-term, they must trade off the rich features, extensions, integrations, and customization they’ve developed in their existing software for a more advanced, but less tailored solution.
Optimizing the ROI of Architecture Transition
Today, the cycle is repeating itself. The cloud / SaaS transition is in full swing, reducing barriers to application adoption and supporting digital transformation with better access, agility, granularity, usability, and collaboration. But these benefits are frequently offset by the increased transition cost and functionality tradeoffs. This traditional “rip and replace” approach to software architecture transition is not sustainable.
This eBook shares details on the TCO and ROI impacts of technology waves. It also explains how companies can prepare themselves for continuous evolution at an optimal ROI by using composable, low-code applications to break the expensive rip-and-replace cycle, reduce TCO, and build long-term ROI.
Changing the Status Quo
The Status Quo is High TCO and Reduced ROI
Software transition is challenging and expensive, simultaneously impacting people, process, and technology. This leads to companies holding on to systems beyond their useful life and waiting until they are forced to make a change. For example, our research shows that the median time of company’s last primary PLM system upgrade is about 3.3 years ago, and most companies have multiple solutions for legacy reasons.2 These older systems should have been changed, but manufacturers can’t face the disruption and don’t want to suffer the need to rip and replace applications. Technology architecture waves are one of the most common things to force companies to change these systems.
Breaking the Rip-and-Replace Cycle
Part of the challenge leading to the need to abandon older, comfortable systems is the way most systems are architected. The most common approach creates direct and indirect interdependencies between the software interface, logic, code, data model, and infrastructure. A less common approach, model-based programming, breaks this paradigm by separating business logic and data models from the underlying software architecture that delivers it. Our research shows that a model-based approach, now commonly known as low-code or no-code software, increases companies’ agility and their ability to digitally transform.3
Low-code also allows the software architecture, the service layer, to change underneath while retaining the investment in the application logic and data model. It makes the underlying IT infrastructure, how you operate the software, independent of the solution. This makes applications much easier to upgrade and breaks the need to rip-and-replace solutions to take advantage of a new technical architecture. It offers continuity of functionality, customizations, extensions, integrations, and reporting during upgrades, including architecture transition. There is still work to do to make the transition to a new architecture, but the vast majority of that work is in the inner workings of the system and accomplished by a smaller team within the IT department or the software provider. The rest is insulated from the technical disruption.
Reducing the Impact
A low-code approach, therefore, allows companies to transition to new architectures and adopt new technologies with far less impact on people, process, and technology. It allows companies to maintain the value of their existing solutions while decreasing cost, risk, and disruption during the transition. This allows companies to more rapidly transition to new architectures with higher ROI and decreased TCO. Beyond the transition, the resulting agility and lack of disruption allows manufacturers to continuously improve to increase the value they receive from software while protecting the investments they’ve already made in people, process, and technology.
Plan for the Future
Plan for the FutureTechnology Waves are Here to Stay
Technology waves will continue and the value they offer will be compelling. Migrating to these new architectures, however, will reduce the value and increase the cost of applications during the transition. Most companies are facing the Cloud / SaaS transition in some or all of their applications, and arguably facing a simultaneous transition from corporate computing to a more mobile, work from anywhere, multi-device paradigm. Businesses must be strategic about how they make the transition.
Increase ROI and Decrease TCO with Low-Code
Now is the time to break the need to rip-and-replace applications to accommodate the cloud and future architecture transitions. Companies can learn from others who invested in low-code solutions and are able to retain their current investment in applications while migrating the underlying computing architecture. This approach maintains the high level of value companies receive from their solutions without taking a significant step back in capabilities. It also reduces the cost, risk, and disruption of the transition.
Adopting low-code solutions insulates companies from architecture waves and allows them to achieve an optimal application ROI and TCO. Companies transitioning to the cloud should make the change thoughtfully, adopting a system that protects them from the factors that limit benefits and drive high costs. At the same time, they should look for a solution that delivers the functional capabilities they need to optimize their business. Selecting a composable, low-code solution with an application library protects their investment because their existing applications ride on top of the technology waves during future transitions as the app library simultaneously offers new functional capabilities to adopt as valuable.
*This summary is an abbreviated version of the research and does not contain the full content. For the full research, please visit our sponsor Aras (registration required).
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