The current commercial landscape is increasingly dominated by organizations that utilize advanced digital solutions first and are able to adopt and integrate new solutions quickly. To compete in a meaningful way, businesses need to embrace new technology and draw up a carefully considered roadmap for digital transformation. Complex legacy systems can be a significant obstacle in this process. Having invested considerable money in these solutions, organizations often find it a challenge to keep them updated to the degree that’s required or to justify replacing them.
These legacy systems can be a significant barrier preventing businesses from adopting a more innovative and agile approach.
Legacy systems often hinder progress
In many big organizations, unwieldy legacy systems are presenting a big challenge. By locking businesses into a high-cost, long-term system that is relatively inflexible, they make it almost impossible to match the rapid pace with which digital technology is evolving. This makes businesses less able to respond to market changes and evolving customer needs. It hinders the ability to adopt and take advantage of new technologies as they emerge, potentially putting them at a competitive disadvantage.
While smaller, more agile organizations unrestricted by legacy systems can pick and choose the solutions they require as and when they become relevant, larger businesses tied to their legacy solutions have to contend with inefficient workflows that can involve large amounts of manual processing. Older legacy systems might also pose an additional security risk, as they were not designed with the latest digital threats in mind.
Modernization enables greater innovation
Businesses frequently thrive or fail based on their ability to accommodate and incorporate new technologies and solutions. AI, advanced analytics and automation solutions fundamentally change how we approach commercial processes. Data-heavy workflows are handled more efficiently and accurately by modern solutions, allowing human employees to focus on more nuanced tasks that maximize their value to a business.
From extracting critical information from forms and applications to personalizing customer communications to drive greater customer satisfaction and loyalty, the latest digital solutions empower businesses by enabling them to transition away from time-consuming manual processing and at the same time, offer their customers a better and faster level of service.
But if these solutions cannot be integrated into an organization’s existing infrastructure, they risk missing out on the advantages.
Overcoming obstacles to innovation
When discussing innovation and the challenges posed by legacy systems with businesses, some familiar objections often arise. Organizations argue that there is considerable internal resistance to change and that employees and management are more comfortable with how things are. The urge to continue with current working practices can be stronger than the urge to innovate and progress. Change is hard. This highlights how innovation and agile working are as much a cultural concern as a technological one.
Organizations also cite compliance and security concerns as reasons to delay change. They instinctively prefer to keep all sensitive data in one, internal system. While these are legitimate concerns, Solutions like those offered by EDC are designed to meet all security and compliance requirements and typically improve on the measures currently in place with legacy systems.
Concerns over the costs of implementing new infrastructure can also prevent organizations from making changes. The assumption is that there is a need to replace everything at the same time. However, the reality is that initial costs for many new systems are low and are managed through OpEx rather than CapEx, leading to greater transparency and ease of cost management. Indeed, significant cost efficiencies are often one of the key benefits of these newer solutions.
EDC facilitates modernization
EDC’s Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) and Customer Communication Management (CCM) solutions are perfect examples.
The IDP solution eliminates manual document processing, enabling businesses to extract data from unstructured documents, such as ID documents, invoices, statements, policy documents, contracts, and legal documents. The IDP solution goes further than rule-based alternatives that can process structured documents and enables businesses to process information from a wider range of formats. For instance, it doesn’t matter what layout, structure, or format an invoice uses, the IDP solution can still read it and extract the relevant information. Capable of reducing processing time by 90%, it results in remarkable time and cost savings.
The CCM solution provides businesses with a means of automating personalized customer communications across a wide range of channels, ranging from email to social media. Crucially, it ensures these communications are sent at the right time and through the right channel, guaranteeing maximum impact. While this is a laborious process when tackled manually, the CCM solution ensures consistent messaging across all channels and allows for personalization on a large scale.
For businesses using legacy systems, EDC’s CCM solution is designed to integrate with those systems and extract the required data. Communications can then be managed and created within the centralized CCM platform, avoiding disruption and enabling organizations to employ the solution without moving away from core legacy systems.
Embracing innovation with EDC
While technology plays a central role in modernization, it is by no means the only consideration. When attempting to move beyond legacy systems, organizations must also contend with cultural issues, existing systems, and workplace processes. Innovation requires more than a high-quality solution; it necessitates a business-wide approach.
Our CCM and IDP solutions make it easier than ever to embrace innovation and improve efficiency in core business processes. By working alongside legacy systems, they also enable you to transition gradually and adopt a step-by-step approach to becoming a more agile organization.
Learn more about our Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) solution.
Learn more about our Customer Communication Management (CCM) solution.
