The Challenges of Relying on Legacy Systems

Many organizations today rely on legacy systems that were built years or even decades ago. While these systems may have served their purpose in the past, relying on outdated technology in today’s fast-paced digital landscape comes with many pitfalls. Legacy systems often lack the flexibility, scalability, and integration capabilities that modern businesses require. Trying to meet evolving business needs with rigid, legacy systems can hinder productivity and innovation.

Legacy ERP systems built on outdated languages like COBOL can be painfully slow and difficult to modify. Inflexible CRM systems may not have the customization options to provide personalized customer experiences. Aging document management systems can make finding and collaborating on files a nightmare. And clunky project management tools can’t keep up with the needs of agile development teams.

The list of challenges goes on:

• Costly, difficult maintenance: Legacy systems require specialized skills to maintain outdated languages and databases. Finding qualified experts can be expensive and time-consuming.
• Integration difficulties: Connecting legacy systems to modern tools and third-party applications can be complex, risky, and limited.
• Scalability issues: Legacy systems weren’t built to handle huge data volumes, large user bases, or sudden spikes in traffic. Scaling them can be prohibitively expensive.
• Security vulnerabilities: Older systems lack modern security capabilities, posing huge risks as threats become more sophisticated.
• User experience headaches: Outdated interfaces and limited functionality lead to poor employee experiences and stifled productivity.
• Analytics and reporting limitations: Built-in reporting capabilities are often primitive or non-existent, restricting operational insights.
• Compliance challenges: Legacy systems may not comply with changing regulations, like GDPR privacy rules or industry standards.
• Vendor dependence: With few developers maintaining skills in older languages, organizations become overly reliant on a shrinking pool of vendors and consultants for support.

With so many headaches plaguing legacy systems, it’s not surprising that a majority of organizations say modernizing core business systems is a top priority. But undertaking full-scale legacy modernization can be daunting, risky, and disruptive to operations. There is, however, a powerful incremental approach organizations can take to gradually supplement legacy systems: embracing Atlassian’s suite of modern workplace tools.

How Atlassian Tools Streamline Workflows and Processes

Atlassian offers a platform of cloud-based collaboration tools that enable teams and organizations to communicate, manage projects, collaborate on content, and track work requests in a whole new way. Teams worldwide have embraced Atlassian’s intuitive, user-friendly solutions to help streamline key processes and workflows, without needing to rip out critical legacy systems right away.

Here’s an overview of Atlassian’s flagship products:

• Jira: Flexible project tracking for all team types with customizable workflows
• Confluence: Content collaboration hub to create, share, and find information
• Jira Service Management: Service desk for managing customer/IT support requests
• Jira Align: Strategic planning for enterprises to align objectives and track key results
• Trello: Kanban boards to organize projects and workflows for agile teams
• Bitbucket: Git repository hosting for enterprise code collaboration

These tools were built as a modern, integrated suite, making it straightforward to get data in and out of other Atlassian products. The common user interface designs allow employees to get up to speed quickly as an organization adopts more of the platform.

And equally important, Atlassian tools feature hundreds of integration options with popular third-party applications organizations already use like Slack, Box, Dropbox, Gmail, and more. This makes it simple to connect Atlassian’s collaboration software with existing legacy infrastructure in a flexible, non-disruptive way.

Supplementing Legacy Systems with Atlassian

Let’s explore how Atlassian tools can supplement legacy systems in a few key departments:

IT Service Management

Rigid, legacy service desk systems make it difficult for IT teams to adapt to the demands of fast-changing organizations. Requests get lost in convoluted workflows. Agents struggle with clunky interfaces and limited mobility. There’s no self-service options or automation capabilities. Reporting is inflexible and analytics are nonexistent.

With Atlassian Jira Service Management, IT teams can transform service operations without ripping out embedded legacy systems. JSM’s intuitive interface lets agents manage tickets anywhere with minimal training. Users can easily submit requests and track progress via self-service.

Automation handles routine incidents like password resets. Powerful analytics provide visibility into performance and bottlenecks. JSM integrates seamlessly with existing tools like infrastructure monitoring, so legacy systems stay embedded but workflow improvements start immediately.

Marketing Campaign Management

Legacy marketing platforms make it difficult to plan and execute integrated campaigns across multiple channels like email, social, web, and more. Disjointed systems lead to poor visibility, duplicated efforts, and disjointed customer experiences.

Atlassian Jira Align gives marketing teams the cross-channel visibility they need to work collaboratively across silos—without replacing legacy MarTech stacks. In Align, teams strategically map out integrated campaigns across projects, people, and channels. Advanced road-mapping features help forecast and schedule campaigns while maintaining alignment on overarching goals and results. Integrations allow two-way synchronization with underlying campaign management platforms. This connects previously siloed efforts without migrating away from embedded legacy systems.

Software Development

Rigid legacy development platforms like SVN can bog down modern engineering teams striving for agility. Disconnected tools lead to fragmented workflows. Managers lack visibility into bottlenecks and velocity. Code security and quality controls are limited.

With Atlassian Bitbucket, engineering teams get the flexibility of Git without migrating away from core legacy systems. Bitbucket’s user-friendly interface lets developers easily collaborate on code. Integrated CI/CD pipelines automate testing and deployment workflows. Powerful code search simplifies debugging. Robust access controls secure code. Highly customizable workflows align with any team structure or process. And Bitbucket integrates with existing SVN infrastructure, so engineering can adopt more agile workflows without risky “big bang” migrations away from legacy platforms.

HR Service Delivery

Clunky legacy HR systems make it tedious for employees to get answers and support on policy questions, benefits enrollment, onboarding processes, and more. Simple requests get stuck in messy approval chains. Answers are hard to find in outdated portals and documentation.

With Atlassian Confluence, HR provides a modern, self-service hub for the entire employee lifecycle—without migrating away from legacy HR systems. Confluence gives HR a single place to organize and manage knowledge. Intuitive templates simplify policy and process documentation. Users find answers fast with powerful enterprise search. Personalized dashboards deliver targeted information to each employee. And integration layers connect documentation in Confluence to back-end HR system data. Now HR can transform the employee experience without undertaking complex legacy system replacement projects.

The Atlas Bench Approach to Atlassian Adoption

Transitioning from rigid legacy systems to Atlassian’s flexible modern platform may seem daunting. But Atlas Bench’s Atlassian experts make it smooth and successful. Our proven implementation methodology focuses on helping organizations adopt Atlassian’s tools at the right pace to meet their specific needs.

We start by thoroughly understanding your workflows, pain points, and integration requirements. Then we design a phased Atlassian rollout plan tailored for your organization and legacy environment. We help you get quick wins from Atlassian tools in a few targeted areas first, then systematically expand from there.

With deep expertise across Atlassian’s entire suite, Atlas Bench helps smooth your transition by:

• Ensuring your Atlassian tools are set up for success from Day 1 with our premium deployment services
• Helping administrators master Atlassian system management to run a high-performing platform
• Training end users with tailored onboarding and adoption programs so employees embrace the new tools
• Assisting with data integration to connect Atlassian’s tools to your legacy systems in an efficient way
• Providing proactive managed services so your environment is always tuned and your team has Atlas Bench as a trusted partner
• Offering full-lifecycle support from launch to every stage of your Atlassian journey

Modernizing business systems is a complex undertaking for any organization. But by adopting Atlassian’s flexible tools at the right pace, you can see bottom-line benefits without unnecessary disruption or risk. Atlas Bench is here to help your organization’s Atlassian adoption succeed in harmony with your current environment.

Contact our experts today to get started on an Atlassian rollout tailored for your technical landscape and business needs!