Microsoft is urging businesses to embrace comprehensive modernisation as a critical step towards AI readiness. Mike Hulme, General Manager of Azure Digital Applications Marketing, outlined this approach in a recent blog post, highlighting the importance of holistic transformation across technology, processes, and people.
Hulme maintains that while generative AI is creating significant buzz, there's untapped potential in modernizing existing applications. "Without modernisation, organisations may miss out on the full value of their investments, lag behind the competition, or fall prey to costly disruptions," he warned.
The blog post cites a Forrester study revealing that one in four business decision-makers have experienced digital platform failures due to modernisation challenges. To address this, Microsoft advocates for a comprehensive strategy that goes beyond mere cloud migration.
Sapiens, an insurance platform provider, serves as a case study in successful modernisation. Michael Mirel, Head of Cloud and DevOps Center of Excellence at Sapiens, reported, "Using and investing in Microsoft Azure tools to automate some of our infrastructure and processes, we managed to cut our time to market in half and reduced our operational overhead by at least 40 percent."
Another example is Scandinavian Airline Systems (SAS), which implemented a broad modernisation strategy called SAS Forward.
Hulme stressed that modernisation must reshape more than just technology, aligning people, processes, and skillsets with new AI-driven ways of working. He noted that successful organisations build clear strategies around AI and AI training, tying them closely to business outcomes.