With time, everything changes. What seemed relevant five years ago is not the right fit today.
In the digital world, where new technologies launch frequently, after a certain time, your existing digital platforms start showing signs that indicate your B2B eCommerce systems solutions are outdated and not compatible with the latest tech stack.
Consider modernizing legacy systems to keep their digital platforms compatible with changing market trends and customer expectations.
According to a recent survey, companies plan to modernize 51% of their custom applications by 2025. Companies determined to attain business efficiency by upgrading their legacy B2B eCommerce systems will experience significant digital transformation.
ioVista would like to help in your journey of digital excellence by sharing exclusive insights about the ideal practices for the effective modernization of your legacy eCommerce system.
Let’s dive deep into the process step-by-step.
How to Modernize Your Legacy B2B eCommerce Systems? 10 Proven Steps
B2B companies consider modernizing their legacy systems to stay ahead of the curve. Thus, the modernization market is growing by leaps and bounds. According to a recent survey, the application modernization market size is projected to reach $74.63 billion by 2031.
B2B companies also contribute to this growth by modernizing their legacy eCommerce systems. They migrate outdated solutions to the latest technology platforms to gain a competitive edge.
eCommerce system modernization/re-platforming requires the right strategy to ensure the expected output. With an experienced B2B Digital Commerce Transformation Agency like ioVista, you can modernize your systems through a streamlined and process-driven approach.
Here are the 10 proven steps to ensure a successful B2B eCommerce system modernization.
Step 1: Understand Your Business’s Specific Needs/Challenges
Every business has a specific set of requirements and challenges for system modernization. So the first step is to identify and understand your eCommerce needs.
Prepare a document of technical challenges/requirements to stay focused on the goals. While creating the list of requirements, consider the needs of each stakeholder who interacts with the system. You should consider legacy system modernization in the below scenarios.
Business Challenges
- Misaligned with Business Value
- Limited Scalability and Flexibility
- Insufficient Process Support
- Incompatible with Current & Future Needs
Technical Challenges
- Higher Maintenance Costs
- Extensive Technical Support
- Security or Compliance Risks
If you have more challenges, list them in a document and share it with the management team, so everyone can understand why modernization is required.
Share your requirements with the vendor. They can elaborate on your needs to design the right modernization strategy and create a road map for execution.
Step 2: Conduct an Audit of Your Legacy B2B eCommerce Systems
Once the requirements are defined, it’s time to conduct a technical audit of the legacy B2B eCommerce systems. ioVista, a leading digital transformation agency, can help you identify the areas where software performance is poor. Based on this analysis, we define the path for modernization that meets your requirements.
During the assessment, we evaluate different aspects including:
- Understanding the gap between users’ requirements and capabilities of an outdated system
- Defining total expenses of the legacy system
- Calculating total expenses of the legacy system
- Analyzing the health of your IT ecosystem
- Assessing integration efficiency
- Performing risk assessment in terms of modernization impacts and costs
Step 3: Determine the Areas of Improvement and Prioritize Them
Technical assessment helps find areas of poor performance in your system and take the right actions for improvement. Prioritization allows you to work on critical areas urgently during the modernization. You can consider the least crucial aspects later on.
For instance, if you want to boost employee productivity, the focus should be workflow automation. In case you want to reduce security risk, the plan of action should be defined around strengthening the security aspects of your B2B eCommerce systems.
Step 4: Define a Modernization Approach:
For system modernization, you need to pick the right approach.
Yes, every system has specific modernization requirements. To meet those requirements, you need to select the right approach. Let’s explore different modernization approaches.
Encapsulate – Extend the features of your legacy systems by making them available as services via an API.
Re-host – Instead of modifying any feature or functionality, the re-host approach focuses on changing the system’s infrastructure. You can deploy the system in a physical, virtual, or cloud environment.
Re-platform – Re-platforming allows you to migrate your legacy system to a new runtime platform. It requires a lot of changes in terms of features, functionality, and infrastructure.
Re-factor – Re-factor helps eliminate technical debt and improve nonfunctional attributes by optimizing or restructuring the existing code. It won’t allow you to make any changes to external behavior.
Re-architect – It’s about changing the code to make the system more efficient within the new architecture. You might need to make significant changes in the features and functionality too.
Re-build – In the re-build approach, you need to keep the original scope of the legacy solution as it is. But, you need to rewrite or design the application components from scratch.
Replace – As the name suggests, it’s about replacing the existing system with a new one. The new system is designed and developed based on the new requirements.
Step 5: Create a Blueprint for Modernization
Have you done selecting the modernization approach?
The next step is to create a. blueprint for system modernization. Define the estimated project progress in different development phases. It should also cover the milestones that need to be attained during the development life cycle. Under the blueprint, you can consider:
- Following the agile development approach where the project is managed into sprints
- Providing a high-level overview of milestones for each sprint that will be achieved during the development
- List down the dependencies of modernization that could impact the development and deployment of new applications
- For successful software development, connect with internal and external stakeholders who are subject matter experts
Step 6: Replace the Outdated Components with New Ones
From here, the execution part starts. In the B2B eCommerce systems modernization, you can divide the development into two major parts:
- Implementing New Components
- Replacing Outdated Components
Implementing New Components:
To build the new B2B eCommerce components, you should select the right eCommerce technology platform such as Magento, Shopify, BigCommerce, etc., that suits your modernization requirements.
Replacing Outdated Components:
Replacing the components of legacy systems with the latest technologies is risky. You have to decide which elements you want to keep and which ones you want to replace.
Working with a renowned B2B digital transformation agency like ioVista helps you transform your system modernization journey by suggesting the right technology and developing robust eCommerce solutions.
Step 7: Testing and Validation of Updated B2B eCommerce Systems
Once the development is over, perform rigorous testing for the updated B2B eCommerce systems. Testing ensures the updated system works seamlessly with the preferred IT environment and provides the expected output.
You need to perform manual and automated testing for:
- Code
- Data Integrity
- User Acceptance
If you encounter any issues during testing, ensure to resolve them before deployment.
Step 8: Implement the Updated System
A proper deployment plan ensures effective implementation and integration of the updated system.
Ideally, the solution should be deployed in stages. After each stage, ask your internal team to check the system, analyze the performance of the software backend, and share feedback. This practice reduces risk and ensures continuous improvement that helps you attain successful system deployment.
Step 9: Analyze the System Output After Modernization
Sit back and relax. You have done the technical part. Now, you need to observe the output delivered by modernized B2B eCommerce systems. The updated version of the system must meet your business goals by facilitating you with:
- Scalability
- Agility
- Flexibility
- productivity & Efficiency
- Reducing Security Risks
- Improving User Responses
- Minimizing Costs
Step 10: Make the Required Changes as Needed
After deploying the system, continuously monitor its performance. If there is any expectation gap, make the required adjustments to fill the gap.
Do you Want to Modernize Your Legacy B2B eCommerce System?
What are you waiting for if your obsolete B2B eCommerce systems hold you back from growing?
Partner with a leading B2B Digital Transformation Agency like ioVista which has 20 years of experience in helping brands modernize their Legacy B2B eCommerce Systems. Leverage our hands-on experience working with leading eCommerce technologies including Magento, Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce, Shopify, and more.
having proven expertise in offering B2B eCommerce system modernization, we help B2B companies transform their legacy systems by providing end-to-end consulting, strategy, and implementation services. We integrate critical B2B features to digitize and streamline all your B2B processes and operations.
Are you ready to enhance your operational efficiency? Connect with ioVista to modernize your outdated B2B eCommerce systems.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Legacy System?
The legacy system is a collection of outdated IT infrastructure, architecture, processes, software, tools, and technologies. They can be software or hardware installed in a monolithic environment.
Though legacy systems are useful and work fine, they can be expensive to operate and maintain. In the long run, such systems hamper the company’s operational efficiency and potential for innovation.
What is Legacy Modernization?
Legacy modernization is the process of upgrading an entire system that an organization is still using. The objective of modernization is to make the existing system compatible with the latest technology standards and modern platforms.
Which Legacy System Modernization Approach is Right for My Business?
It is difficult to provide an accurate answer for this without analyzing the performance of your existing systems. It also depends on the level of change you want to bring into your digital space. Based on your requirements, you can go for a less disruptive approach or select a complete overhaul.