Build your application transformation roadmap

Like any business initiative, application transformation runs more smoothly if you start with an implementation roadmap.

Build your application transformation roadmap

Step #1: Assess your application portfolio

Rationalize your application portfolio

Before deciding which applications to transform, you need a comprehensive view of your portfolio, whether that’s 40 applications or more than 4,000. The larger the organization, the more likely it is that application knowledge is siloed by department or business unit.

Calculate application transformation ROI

Unisys’ ROI calculator estimates the potential business value of application transformation, factoring in user satisfaction levels, maintenance costs and support setup. Get a customized ROI report to guide your transformation.

Application portfolio rationalization deepens your understanding of your entire portfolio. This comprehensive evaluation recommends whether to retain, retire, replace, rehost, replatform or refactor each business application. This assessment guides you in:

Prioritizing modern applications to streamline your portfolio and reduce operational overhead
Retiring redundant applications to avoid unnecessary licensing fees and management complexity
Eliminating or replacing infrequently used applications that aren’t serving your business needs

Identify applications to transform

Your employees are often so busy running day-to-day tasks with existing applications that they don’t have time to identify legacy apps to modernize. Good candidates include:

Legacy applications with high business value but significant technical debt
Applications delivering a negative user experience because of friction
Multiple enterprise apps or redundant application functionality calling for simplification
Situations where increasing licensing costs make applications untenable
Manual business processes unfulfilled by any existing app or automation through rationalization or identification

Set KPIs and success metrics

As organizations advance their application transformation journeys, the way you measure success is evolving. While traditional KPIs have long provided benchmarks for progress, there is a growing shift toward outcome-based criteria that better capture the true impact of modernization efforts. By comparing conventional KPIs with outcome-focused metrics, organizations can more holistically evaluate the effectiveness of their strategies and ensure lasting value for users and stakeholders.

Blending traditional KPIs with outcome-focused metrics offers a more complete picture of transformation success.

Traditional KPIs	Outcome-based success criteria
Number of applications migrated and modernized	Improved user satisfaction and engagement
Application performance vs. legacy systems	Operational efficiency gains
User adoption rates	Faster time to value for new solutions
Cost reduction	Greater adaptability to evolving business needs
Support ticket frequency and resolution time	Enhanced service delivery to end users

Step #2: Choose the right transformation strategy

Application modernization options

A retail store undergoing renovations may partition certain areas for remodeling but not close entirely because the lights must stay on. Similarly, organizations, especially those in the public sector and health and human services, want to minimize IT disruption from application transformation with a customized plan using:

A zero-disruption methodology that prioritizes a seamless user experience
Architectural frameworks that address data duplication and consistency issues when phasing in new applications
Strategies for moving users from a legacy application to a modern replacement

	How it works	Best choice when
Replatform	Migrating an application with modifications to benefit from the new cloud infrastructure	Code changes are minimal, but you want to improve performance and cost savings
Refactor	Restructuring an application’s source code while maintaining capabilities	The application’s technical debt is stalling progress, and you need increased agility, maintainability and quality
Rearchitect	Fundamentally changing the application’s structure and design	You want better alignment with current requirements, business needs and standards
Rebuild	Building the application again with updated technologies and frameworks	Incremental changes aren’t sufficient, and you prioritize a modern user experience

Step #3: Leverage AI for application development

AI streamlines the application development process so you can innovate new capabilities and accelerate feature release.

Ways to leverage AI include:

Code porting: AI tools can analyze legacy codebases and assist in porting them to modern platforms by identifying outdated patterns, suggesting refactoring strategies and automating translation to newer languages or frameworks.
Code generation: AI can migrate code through different language syntax and version upgrades, replatform by moving applications to new platforms and frameworks with intelligent code migration and rearchitect and rebuild with code generation tooling.
Application documentation: AI can generate documentation, review for quality, revise based on feedback and extract insights quickly. Accurate, thorough documentation prevents operational headaches if an application’s developer leaves.
Predictive debugging and intelligent orchestration: AI-powered debugging tools act as a second set of eyes and offer 24/7 analysis of system behavior, logs and code. AI-powered orchestration coordinates tasks and streamlines workflows automatically.

Test automation and risk mitigation: AI can support repeatable application testing in its current environment and infrastructure to ensure consistent performance. Automated testing assures you, before release, that the application functionality will satisfy requirements.

SUCCESS STORY

Reduced build time by 93%

A U.S.-based Fortune 100 mortgage company wanted to eliminate manual processes. Unisys experts built an application onboarding and operations model that saved the company $3 million annually, sped application feature release, reduced build time by 93% and achieved 100% compliance automation.