How to unlock C-suite support for application modernization initiatives

Business leaders and IT departments can hold very different views on the priority and outcomes of application modernization, and these opposing views often hinder or block modernization efforts.

While everyone wants modern applications that support organizational objectives, executive leadership and IT leaders often view the investment with different costs and benefits in mind. Consequently, only 50% of modernization projects are currently getting approved, according to research presented at the Gartner Application Innovation and Business Solutions Summit this year.

In this article we outline the reasons for this low approval rate, and what IT departments can do to obtain buy-in and alignment with executive leadership that would lead to project progress.

What’s blocking buy-in?

A recent independent study by EvolveWare on the State of Application Modernization found that 40% of IT team respondents said that boosting productivity is a top priority for modernization, alongside retiring mainframe infrastructure (37%), and reducing the dependency on legacy code (36%).

However, the report found a disconnect when comparing these priorities to how the organization itself measured success. Instead, improving customer experience and the readiness to migrate to the cloud showed up as the top measures of organizational success, indicating that there are differences in how IT teams think about the benefits of modernization versus the rest of the business.

When executive leadership and tech leaders do not see eye to eye, it’s typically a strong signal that a project will not get off the ground or that the project will not get funded at the level that is needed.

The importance of this disconnect has only grown since executive leadership has increased their role in making technology decisions in recent years. In fact, according to a recent Rackspace report, 50% of respondents reported that executive leadership—the C-suite—have been one of the main drivers of modernization.

Differences in viewpoints

The root of the problem lies in how differently the two groups think about goals and priorities. Executive leaders prioritize business competitiveness by focusing on maximizing ROI, increasing profit margins, and maintaining a competitive advantage with their products and services. Meanwhile IT departments focus more on business operations like mitigating security risks, increasing scalability, improving ease of integration, and increasing operational efficiency.

At the surface level, these goals sound inherently different. However, when an organization takes the right approach, they can both be achieved at the same time. For example, if a technology team modernizes a legacy application to gain scalability, the application can potentially expand to meet executive goals for business growth.

While it may seem straighforward to communicate this to leadership, there are practical reasons for the continued disconnect between tech teams and executives. For example, in the current, uncertain economic environment, executives would prefer immediate big wins for a greater sense of security.

Tech leadership, on the other hand, prefer to move more steadily with a long-term take on technology investment, particularly if they’ve been involved with failed projects in the past.

Furthermore, tech teams also tend to support and drive a modernization program as the technical benefits are readily apparent to them due to their expertise. However, executive leaders do not often understand the technology aspects well enough, and therefore pause modernization because of the longer-term commitment and lack of immediate business value.

Align the language

To secure C-suite buy-in for modernization initiatives, IT teams must collaborate with business stakeholders to build a strong business case with hard facts. However, it is also equally important to rely on a soft approach, using influence and empathy to bring executive leaders on board.

Technology leaders should start by translating the technical challenges they face into succinct business language that can be understood by leaders. This can be accomplished by dropping tech jargon for a language that maps IT needs to business needs and outcomes.

For example, in a tough economy, cost management would be a priority for senior executives. Therefore technology leaders should present application modernization as an opportunity to save on both short-term and long-term costs rather than focusing on technical benefits such as scalability.

Additionally, it’s also worth tapping into the executive mindset and identify what trends business leaders are following. There is a good chance that certain aspects of a modernization project will support those trends—with touchpoints for each C-level persona. For example, a CEO may focus on workforce engagement or productivity, or a CFO may be looking at actionable data and analytics.

Another alignment problem can be the “let’s go ahead, but later” philosophy. When faced with this situation, IT leaders should focus on opportunity costs and the cost of “doing nothing.” For example, tech teams can highlight several costs of inaction such as the risk of cybersecurity breaches, lost productivity, or being overtaken by a competitor.

Lower the hurdle by phasing the project

Executive leaders sometimes have a tainted view of application modernization because the “big bang” approach or tackling the entire project in one go can often lead to budget overruns, project delays, and unmet objectives.

Technology teams can counteract that perception by opting for a step-by-step, incremental, results-based process. Consequently, IT leaders can then break up a large project and the budget for that project into smaller chunks, with measurable outcomes that signpost the next stage. This is what is called a phased approach.

After reaching a consensus with key stakeholders on the budget and resources assigned to modernizing an application portfolio, the next step in a phased approach is to assess applications, evaluate areas of optimization, and identify a path to modernization for each application.

For example, comprehensively mapping application and data dependencies allows teams to understand how systems are connected and what data fields these systems touch. This step is useful both for general system understanding and for determining how to break up a project or whether part of the application would be suitable for a subsequent pilot project.

A pilot project, which is one of the last phases prior to embarking on the full modernization initiative, will help to test the resources and processes that have initially been agreed upon. It can also build credibility due to any learnings or demonstrated successes from the project.

Buy-in is achievable, but start early

Ultimately, everyone in the organization wants to have modern applications that support the success and growth of the organization. However, differing priorities often result in roadblocks to achieving this.

IT leaders should start to obtain buy-in from executive leadership before progressing all the way to planning or budgeting. By keeping leadership in sync on all the details including costs and timelines, the modernization process can be executed unimpeded and without interruption.

Once the initial go-ahead is received, IT departments should keep the communication channels with executive leadership open. Establish an ongoing feedback loop of assessment and iterative reviews to demonstrate results. This will ensure that executive leaders and IT teams can make well-informed choices and necessary modifications when required while keeping the project in good shape.

A collaborative approach that ensures alignment between executives and IT teams will help organizations prioritize and execute on modernization projects that reap the maximum benefit.

Miten Marfatia is the founder and CEO of EvolveWare, a global leader in automating the documentation, analysis and modernization of software applications.

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