Part 1 of X - Legacy Systems Modernization (Applications, Infrastructure and Processes) at Fortune 200/1000 by Chandra Gundlapalli

Public\Private Cloud Modernization & Innovation

February 17, 2023

I led global TEAMS with 10+ years of $30M-$650M vision, strategy & roadmaps at Fortune 500 cloud modernization, AI/ML predictive insights, platform architecture & governance, data center operations automation, Salesforce CRM, SAP ERP in the Financial, Retail, Utilities, & Tech.

I am proud of the following accomplishments together with my TEAM

  • Improved Speed-to-Market by >25%

  • Realized Cloud TCO Cost Savings by >45%

  • Reduced Operations Cost by >32%

  • Increased Employee Engagement by >40%

In this article, I am summarizing my real-world experience with Business Challenges, Solutions, Business Benefits, and Learning with a spirit of continuous learning for all of us so YOU can jump-start your modernization initiatives.

Business Challenge (s)

  • People

    • Lack of systems documentation, and a retiring workforce with a ton of expert understanding of systems/processes, results in poor user experience

    • Lack of digital skills, lack of efficient workforce upskilling

    • Employees are resistant to change since they have become accustomed to the established processes & procedures.

    • Lack of established strategic partnerships

  • Process/Compliance

    • Lack of structured delivery and roadmap expectations, delivery commitment with out a clear understanding of the demand/backlog

    • Potential security risks are associated with legacy systems, as outdated software and hardware can be vulnerable to malicious attacks

    • Evolving regulatory challenges (e.g., FINRA, PCI, SOX, GDPR, NIST cybersecurity regulatory compliance)

    • Lack of well architected cloud (public or private) blueprints per organization maturity

    • Siloed data systems, lack of matured data governance resulting in poor data quality

    • Innovating while JOB 1 day to day delivery (bandwidth allocation and motivating)

    • Lack of tested Business Continuity Testing/DR systems

  • Technology

    • Outdated for very reliable Mainframe systems

    • Lack of application/infrastructure dependency and business impact

    • Lack of quantitative cloud readiness

    • Lack of effective end-user experience/user interface, typical legacy system (developed in mainframe, etc.,) has 20-30 screens for a simple task.

    • Lack of real-time security & compliance posture to address vulnerabilities and organizations' brand risk

    • Public cloud well-architected frameworks don't talk about foundational elements needed for modernization - for example Value stream mapping (VSM) and Domain-Driven Design(DDD) to identify waste and design resilient systems

    • Emerging platforms (Salesforce) doesn't have mature modern industry vertical solutions.

    • Integration of new technology on existing infrastructure

    • Obsolete Mainframe/SAP ERP versions

Note: numbers above are not based on priority or criticality

Solution (s)

  • "Business Friction" modernization - Understand the real friction customers are facing

    • Most of the friction would be around how end users are accessing your application/system. Start by focusing on addressing the user experience

    • End users prefer personalized messaging, focus on building recommendations leveraging emerging Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

  • Scaled agile/lean delivery

    • Break the big TEAM in to mini TEAMS with scrum masters/business analysts/developers and testers

    • Establish a scrum of the scrum where all the scrum masters would meet daily to address dependency challenges

    • Create a bi-weekly executive stakeholder demo cadence to articulate the progress and also bring up potential roadblocks for creative solutions

    • Show quantitative progress in terms of hours or story points (scrum terminology)

  • TEAM of TEAM operating model

    • Teams are effective because they trust each other and they have a shared purpose. This is what we call shared consciousness.

  • Value stream map and Domain Driven Design Architecture Principles

    • Identify waste & bottlenecks and make processes efficient

    • Improve cross-functional collaboration and quality

  • Application and Infrastructure Systems portfolio modernization readiness

    • Leverage tools for application modernization assessment. I partnered with CAST Software in my past executive role to quickly assess application cloud readiness

    • For infrastructure systems dependencies, my TEAM used device42 for infrastructure inter-dependency diagrams

PS: I will dig deeper into each of the above solution points in detail very soon and add a link.

Business Benefits

  • 30% savings for top banks & Airlines

  • Executive alignment on the roadmap and incremental delivery

  • >50% attrition reduction and 45% employee engagement with a UNIQUE empowered TEAM of TEAMS operating model

  • >30% efficient IT operations

  • $20M risk mitigation, 8% churn reduction

  • Optical Character Recognition 30% cost reduction, AIOps incident automation

  • Bigdata customer next best action

  • 5x costs savings, Machine learning, AWS, Blockchain

  • >25% speed-to-market operating model

  • Replaced SAP ERP CRM5.0 with Salesforce

  • Business Continuity, 8-hour RPO SLA

Learned Lessons

  • Building Trust and Empowering TEAM following the principle of "Lead with Humility not Hierarchy"

  • Executive Alignment, understand the organization short & long term goals

  • Prepare and Articulate Clear Vision & Strategy

    • Understand SEC reports/published vision

    • Translate leadership vision to OKR (Objectives and Key Results)/KPI (Key Performance Indicators)

    • Map OKR/KPIs to respective business unit SMART goals

    • Map OKR/KPIs to respective business unit SMART goals - Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound

  • Establish Agile Operating Model on the ground

    • Quantitative Capacity Model

    • TEAM of TEAMS Operating Model (shared consciousness with guardrails)

  • Lack of data stewardess/ownership

  • I partnered with World's top architects (Domain Driven Design, Value Stream Mapping patterns)

  • Application Assessment tools don't have support for all the legacy language versions (Cobol, Fortran, etc.)

  • Lift & Shift of massive legacy systems is not feasible

  • ?

  • ?

I covered some of the challenges\business solutions in my Forbes articles portfolio here.