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Companies often rely on custom-developed business software to meet their specific needs. Over time, these solutions can become obsolete, difficult to maintain, and poorly suited to new business challenges. Faced with these issues, the question arises: is it better to renovate the existing system or start from scratch with a new solution? This article offers concrete criteria to guide this strategic decision: technical condition, usage patterns, technical debt, business stakes, and evolution constraints. It also outlines the key steps to plan a smooth transition, whether through refactoring or a complete overhaul.
Assessing the Technical and Functional State of the Existing Software
This step involves conducting an objective diagnosis of the current platform. It helps measure the gap between the software’s capabilities and the company’s real needs.
Architecture Analysis and Technical Debt
It entails examining the code structure, the languages used, module quality, and test coverage. A clean, modular architecture facilitates evolution, while a monolithic and undocumented structure increases regression risks.
Technical debt shows up as unstable or overly coupled components, outdated dependencies, and a lack of automated tests. Its accumulation can turn even a simple change into a major project.
For example, a Swiss industrial SME discovered during an audit that more than half of its libraries hadn’t been updated in two years. Maintenance accounted for 70 % of development time, severely limiting innovation.
Usage Mapping and User Feedback
Gathering feedback from operational teams and business managers reveals daily pain points. Some processes may have been bypassed or worked around via peripheral solutions.
Identifying the most used features and those generating the most incidents helps set priorities. Usage metrics (click rates, response times) provide objective indicators.
An e-commerce company, for example, had adapted its inventory management tool with ten in-house extensions, creating data inconsistencies. Systematic incident reports highlighted the urgency of rethinking these modules.
Identifying External Constraints and Dependencies
Business software often integrates with ERPs, CRMs, BI tools, or third-party cloud services. You need to list these connections to assess migration or refactoring complexity.
Internal and external APIs, data formats, and security rules impose technical constraints. Vendor lock-in or proprietary licenses can limit modernization options.
For instance, a healthcare provider used a proprietary authentication component. When support for this module ended, the organization faced security risks and a 30 % increase in licensing costs the following year.
Weighing the Benefits and Limits of Renovating the Software
Renovation preserves past investments while gradually modernizing the solution. However, it only makes sense if the technical foundation is sound.
Agility Gains and Controlled Costs
Targeted refactoring of critical components can restore flexibility and significantly reduce technical debt. Service modularization improves maintainability and accelerates deployments.
Unlike a full rebuild, renovation relies on the existing system, limiting initial costs. It can deliver quick wins in performance and user experience.
In one telecom company, the IT department isolated and refactored its billing modules, cutting production incidents by 40 % and speeding up invoice processing times.
Risk of Debt Accumulation and Evolution Limits
Each patch and new feature carries regression risks if the codebase remains complex. Technical debt may move instead of being resolved.
Major framework or database upgrades can reveal deep incompatibilities, requiring complex and costly fixes.
For example, a large industrial group recently attempted to migrate its development framework but had to suspend the project due to incompatibilities with its custom extensions, causing an 18-month delay.
Impact on Deployment Times and Security
Well-designed CI/CD pipelines enable frequent, safe deployments but require a robust test suite. Without prior refactoring, achieving satisfactory coverage is difficult.
Security vulnerabilities often stem from outdated dependencies or unsecure legacy code. Renovation must include upgrading sensitive components.
A Swiss financial institution discovered a critical vulnerability in its legacy reporting engine. Securing this module impacted the entire IT roadmap for six consecutive months.
Edana: strategic digital partner in Switzerland
We support mid-sized and large enterprises in their digital transformation
When Replacement Becomes Inevitable
Replacement is necessary when the existing platform can no longer meet strategic and operational objectives. It’s a more ambitious choice but often essential to regain agility and performance.
Technical Limits and Obsolescence
Outdated technologies, unsupported frameworks, and end-of-life databases are major technical blockers. They restrict innovation and expose the infrastructure to security risks.
An oversized monolith hinders scaling and makes updates cumbersome. Over time, maintenance effort outweighs business value.
For example, a retailer saw its mobile app overload during a traffic spike. The legacy platform couldn’t scale, forcing the group to develop a more scalable distributed solution. This shows that poorly anticipated software obsolescence can create real problems and slow down development.
Opportunities with a New Custom Solution
A full rebuild offers the chance to adopt a microservices architecture, integrate DevOps practices, and leverage modern open-source technologies. The ecosystem can then evolve continuously without a single vendor dependency.
Developing from scratch also allows you to rethink the UX, optimize data flows, and capitalize on AI or automation where the old software couldn’t.
Market Solution vs. In-House Development
Off-the-shelf solutions can be deployed quickly and come with mature support. They fit if business processes are standard and the vendor’s roadmap aligns with future needs.
In-house development ensures a precise fit with the organization’s specifics but requires strong project management and software engineering skills.
A Swiss energy group, for instance, compared a market ERP with a custom build for its consumption tracking. The custom solution won out due to specific regulatory needs and a ten-year ROI projection favoring its lower total cost of ownership.
Planning a Successful Software Transition
Whatever option you choose, a detailed roadmap minimizes risks and ensures progressive adoption. Planning must address both technical and human aspects.
Cohabitation Strategy and Phased Migration
Introducing a cohabitation phase ensures business continuity. Both systems run in parallel, synchronizing data to limit interruptions.
A module-by-module cutover provides visibility on friction points and allows adjustments before full production release.
Change Management and Team Training
Change management support includes defining internal champions, producing guides, and organizing hands-on workshops. These actions reduce the learning curve and foster buy-in.
Training sessions should cover new processes, solution administration, and common incident resolution. The goal is to build sustainable internal expertise.
Performance Monitoring and Feedback Loops
Defining key indicators (response time, error rate, user satisfaction) before implementation allows you to measure real gains. Regular reporting feeds steering committees.
Formalized feedback at each milestone fosters continuous learning and guides future iterations. It builds stakeholder confidence.
For example, it’s common to establish a quarterly post-go-live review committee. Each blocking issue can then be addressed before the next phase, ensuring a smooth transition.
Gain Agility and Performance by Rebuilding or Renovating Your Business Software
Renovating or replacing business software remains a strategic decision with lasting impacts on operational efficiency, security, and innovation. You should objectively assess technical condition, usage patterns, and constraints before selecting the most suitable path.
Regardless of the scenario, a planned transition—audit, roadmap, phased migration, and change management—determines project success. At Edana, our experts are at your disposal to help you ask the right questions and define the approach that best aligns with your business objectives.
