Case Study

Systems Modernisation Planning

An organisation has a large on-prem monolithic ERP that requires retiring, but underpins 100% billable revenues. A modernisation program was running for many years without making a dent on the ERP platform, and ended up adding complexity to the IT landscape. Minimal patterns and designs were being use to guide modernisation.

Opportunity

There was an opportunity to breakdown the monolithic ERP and start extracting blocks of functionality that operated as services within the Cloud. Included introducing standards and common patterns to enable the squads to improve support for rapid business change. The opportunity included designing an approach to decouple from the ERP to allowed the backend to change without impacting the frontend.

Hypotheses

Is it possible to breakdown a complex monolithic ERP by extracting blocks of functionality, without impacting business operations and ongoing business project changes?
Is it possible to standardise on a set of standards, patterns and practices that enable squads to successfully adopt the Cloud, and built services that reduce complexity, are modern, and reduce friction across practices & processes?

The solution

Understand the current state by running a series of discovery sessions and determine different patterns to drive systems modernisation. Design a set of proof of concepts and architectures that required evaluating through the development of prototypes (frontend, middleware, backend). Establish and lead the teams during prototyping and document the results and technology choices. Plan and lead the business showcase, while encouraging participants from each team to present on their findings.

Major Pain Points

Multiple squads were required to make system changes, based on business requests, to minimise impacts to customers.
Limited staff understand the full complexity of the custom-built ERP, which has a 30 year history.
The business needs lots of system changes to stay competitive and reach their goals.
New solutions being built to resolve numerous problems were becoming monolithic in their right.

Outcome

A set of modernisation patterns were agreed for the frontend, middleware and backend, including approach to decouple from the monolithic ERP. The business showcase demonstrated the ability for the teams to rapidly deliver against the patterns and the approach to decoupling. The patterns and approach were supported by the executives and after further refinement, they were agreed with the global group.

Technological Change Consultancy

CONSULTING FROM REAL EXPERIENCES

Case Study

Systems Modernisation Planning

Opportunity