Top 5 signs your legacy systems are holding your business back from growth

Some of the most common roadblocks to growth are old and unsupported systems and manual processes that hold businesses back from maximising success and fueling future expansion.

While your business is unique, often your pain points are not; for organisations of your size the challenges are usually common. By giving your people back the time they need to focus on your ‘special sauce’, you can remove bottlenecks and wasted inefficiencies of legacy systems previously cobbled together that are no longer fit for doing business in a modern world at speed and scale.  

The following are the five top pain points that arise when it is time to rethink your digital core:

1. Your current IT infrastructure can no longer support rapid business growth and even worse you’re paying significant costs for licensing, support and labour each year.  Outdated and inefficient systems are causing your people to waste thousands of hours a year and are holding you back. These struggles with systems that aren’t user friendly, manual processes and employee inefficiencies are the norm.
2. Your data and system interconnection is a nightmare, you’ve got multiple systems running that don’t play well together or at all. You have multiple versions of truth to dissect when attempting to extract insights from your data. Your management and employees lack real-time intelligence, holding back their ability to make fast, well-informed decisions. It is difficult, labour intensive and time consuming for your company to produce basic reports and dashboards.
3. You dread financial close as it is a difficult process. End of month, quarter and year is complex and labour intensive.  It is challenging to know your true profitability and costs.
4. Your business continuity is at risk because your organisation is heavily reliant on aging or out of support technology or hardware or, worse, you have a key resource risk. If the one ‘hero’ in your organisation who knows how to make it work should fall ill or leave the company, you’re suddenly very exposed. And if your system(s) should ever fail, your daily operations in turn are at risk.
5. Growth and expansion are blocked by systems that aren’t designed to adapt to today's fast-moving and distributed business world. You’re unable to enter new markets, leverage new customer segments and regions and create innovative solutions. Let alone take advantage of market gaps, pivot offerings or add value because your digital core is letting you down. Without the ability to grow, your company will continue to fall behind and competitors will erode your profitability.

If you’ve answered positively to two or more of the points above and are struggling with outdated systems that aren’t allowing your business to operate efficiently and effectively, then it is time to seriously consider a digital transformation strategy.

Through our work with thousands of highly complex organisations, Deloitte can quickly apply the efficiencies of ‘best-practice’ solutions and provide ultimate speed to value, helping your business shift to the cloud and transform your infrastructure in weeks not years.

The Deloitte SAP team understands the roadblocks that are holding your business back. Talk to us today about how we can help.