Enterprises rely on the CTO to maximize business results through technology. Yet today, it is LEGACY technology that holds this progress back more than anything. There are so many pitfalls to modernizing legacy systems:

• Not every stakeholder will get everything they want.
• Program delays.
• Introducing regression. 
• Disrupting the user experience. 
• Lack of in-house expertise (cloud, automation, modern frameworks) 
• Choosing the wrong partner.
• Analysis paralysis

But for every example of an overhaul gone wrong, there is a success story of a company blasting ahead of its competitors by reinventing its technology suite. Smart CTOs know how to navigate modernization programs, but they need a partner to make it happen. 

Enter the Thinklogic DART (Digital Acceleration and Response Team). A DART team is your  SWAT team for digital transformation. Armed with decades of experience and the range of modern skills needed - digital strategists, market analysts, UX designers, architects, prototypers and specialized engineers - the DART team provides the CTO end-to-end delivery of legacy modernization. 

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"Thinklogic was our end-to-end digital transformation partner, helping us re-imagine and re-build our flagship catalog from the ground up, fast enough to keep us ahead of the market."

- Chatsworth CTO

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"When our project was running behind, I had to plan very carefully how we would catch up and maintain our client's confidence. Thinklogic’s DART team ramped up fast and started contributing on day 1." 

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In its ground-breaking paper 7 Options To Modernize Legacy Systems, Gartner provides a blueprint:

1. Encapsulate. Leverage and extend the application features by encapsulating its data and functions, making them available as services via an API.
2. Rehost. Redeploy the application component to other infrastructure (physical, virtual or cloud) without modifying its code, features or functions.
3. Replatform. Migrate to a new runtime platform, making minimal changes to the code, but not the code structure, features or functions.
4. Refactor. Restructure and optimize the existing code (although not its external behavior) to remove technical debt and improve nonfunctional attributes.
5. Rearchitect. Materially alter the code to shift it to a new application architecture and exploit new and better capabilities. 
6. Rebuild. Redesign or rewrite the application component from scratch while preserving its scope and specifications.
7. Replace. Eliminate the former application component altogether and replace it, considering new requirements and needs at the same time.
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“Thinklogic worked with us to design an innovative design to our web presence, and the engineered product looked as good as the original mockups, driving new business outcomes.”

- Exar CTO

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Technology modernization requires many skills and a vision to bring them all together. Thinklogic DART is the CTO’s local partner with a repeatable formula to create:

• a strong and specific product vision that empowers all teams to make smart decisions
• illustrated concepts, so that every stakeholder is seeing the same end state
• coordination and empathy between research and production teams
• carefully selected architectural patterns and frameworks 
• knowledge of the technology market - don’t code when you can tap into modern systems
• an emphasis on predictability - predictable teams generate results as expected
• proper QA strategy to avoid a quality bottleneck
• a culture of transparency and trust
• a process for creative innovation and refinement, even on a deadline.

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The risks associated with not updating legacy technology outweigh those associated with an update. But a successful redesign absolutely requires the right skills and techniques. Work with a local team, right in your office, that has been there and done that again and again.

About Thinklogic

Thinklogic Inc. is a consulting firm specializing in web design, web development, and custom business software solutions since 1998. With offices in Los Angeles and Pasadena, Thinklogic has successfully executed projects for up-and-coming startups to Fortune 500 companies.