Legacy platforms are often dismissed as obstacles to innovation. The lure to ‘rip and replace’ these outdated systems can be strong as organisations aim to stay competitive and meet customer demands. Yet this approach frequently ignores the inherent value and intelligence embedded in decades-old, forgotten languages and heritage systems. Hidden business rules embedded deep within COBOL, Rocket UniVerse, UniData, and other legacy environments still steer critical company operations. However, these rules are rarely documented or fully understood.
For CIOs, CTOs, and IT leaders, it’s vital to see these business rules as essential foundations rather than hindrances. By focusing on extracting, analysing, understanding, and reinterpreting these rules for today’s business, organisations can develop a modernisation strategy that honours legacy systems while fostering innovation.
The Smarter Path: Knowledge-First Modernization powered by GenAI
A knowledge-first approach to modernisation involves thoroughly understanding existing business processes, rules, and logic prior to any code transformation. This method leads to more controlled efforts that are not only more innovative and faster but also easier to test and significantly less risky. This method accelerates value delivery, allowing organisations to modernise gradually and achieve their first quick, measurable success within 90 days. For CFOs and finance leaders, it provides a more controlled investment pathway and diminishes the risk of costly false starts.
Generative AI speeds up this transformation by helping unlock institutional knowledge stored in legacy systems. By analysing decades of business logic and data, GenAI uncovers and documents critical processes, preserving the organisational memory that fuels enterprise-wide innovation. As a result, legacy systems shift from liabilities to strategic assets that support future transformation.
Many businesses across various industries that have successfully modernised their technology environments follow an incremental approach. For instance, at Mitra AI, we helped Travis Perkins, a large UK hardware and construction retailer, mitigate the risks associated with its legacy ERP by leveraging GenAI and our proven five-phase modernization approach. This came after a previous four-year failed ERP modernisation initiative with another vendor had cost them £108 million without achieving the desired outcomes. Similarly, at Aetna, a leading managed healthcare company, we assisted in migrating multiple legacy systems by transforming key processes into microservices, ensuring smooth continuity and minimizing risks.
In both cases, these organisations experienced not only immediate cost savings but also greater agility and faster innovation deployment.
Modernize Smarter, Not Harder
Your legacy systems hold decades of critical business knowledge. Don’t risk losing it by writing it off as a lost cause. With RocketDev.AI and our knowledge-first, cost-effective and low-risk approach to progressive modernisation, you can:
Unlock hidden rules in COBOL, Rocket Universe, and UniData
Integrate legacy platforms with cloud and APIs seamlessly
Use GenAI to accelerate code analysis and transformation
👉 Request a Demo Today and see how your legacy systems can become blueprints for innovation.
By Ashok Suppiah
Co-founder, Chairman & CEO at Mitra AI
