In today’s fast-paced business environment, using outdated legacy communications infrastructure can negatively impact your business performance. Your organisation needs to run as efficiently as possible, not just for your bottom line but also for the performance of your employees and the safety and security of your clients.
In this article, we discuss what legacy systems are, signs your current communications infrastructure no longer serves your business’ needs, and why updating your legacy communications infrastructure is vital to your business’ success.
What are legacy systems?
Legacy systems are computer systems, applications, or software that are outdated or no longer supported by their manufacturers or developers. These systems may be obsolete in terms of technology or may no longer meet the organisation's needs. However, despite their drawbacks, legacy systems are often still used because of the significant investment in time and resources required to replace them.
Organisations that rely on legacy systems face several challenges, including the risk of system failures, increased maintenance costs, and the inability to take advantage of new technology advancements. As a result, legacy systems can pose unnecessary risks to firms by exposing them to security vulnerabilities, requiring high maintenance costs, and limiting business scalability.
Additionally, in today’s hybrid working environment, trader voice technology needs to meet more nuanced requirements, such as keeping teams efficient when working outside the office, ensuring reliable system access when working remotely and ensuring trading transactions and communications are as secure off-site as they are on. This cannot be achieved through legacy systems, reinforcing the need to update legacy communications systems to maintain optimum business performance.
Signs that your current legacy communications infrastructure is no longer fit for your business
As technology develops and advances, so do the threats to your company’s important data. Older systems are at greater security risk and more vulnerable to malware or data breaches than modern systems. Depending on your type of business, one data breach can cost you more than just money; it can cost you your client’s trust, which isn’t something that can be so easily won back.
So, what are the key signs your current systems are outdated?
Difficulty accessing data: Legacy systems can make it difficult to access and work with data, which can slow down decision-making, reduce efficiency, and make it more difficult to gain insights from data.
Difficulty in integration: Legacy systems may be difficult to integrate with other software and hardware systems, leading to inefficiencies and increased costs.
Inefficient processes: Legacy systems can lead to inefficient processes that can slow workflow, reduce productivity, and increase costs. This can make it difficult for businesses to remain efficient and competitive.
Unstable systems: Legacy systems can lead to unstable systems due to incompatibility issues, unsupported software, lack of maintenance, hardware failure, inadequate backup procedures, and scalability limitations.
Security risks: Older systems may be more susceptible to security threats due to outdated security protocols and configurations. Hackers can exploit these vulnerabilities to gain unauthorised access to the system, steal sensitive data, or disrupt operations.
Limited or no support: Legacy systems may be running on outdated technology no longer supported by the manufacturer or software vendors, making it challenging to find compatible software or integrate with newer systems' Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). This can make it difficult for businesses to maintain their IT infrastructure, leaving them vulnerable to security risks, downtime, and other issues.
Limited feature enhancements: Limited feature enhancements of legacy systems can make it difficult for businesses to keep up with the changing needs of the modern workplace, reducing efficiency and competitiveness.
Preparing for the future: Why updating to a unified communications infrastructure is important
Updating your legacy communications infrastructure is important to improve performance, enhance security, save costs, improve customer satisfaction, and provide better compatibility with newer systems. By upgrading to modern systems, your business will be better equipped to meet the needs of the modern workplace, improve collaboration, and increase the overall efficiency of your business operations.
So, what are the key reasons updating your legacy communications infrastructure is Important?
Improve reliability: Updating your legacy communications infrastructure can improve reliability by reducing downtime, improving scalability and providing better support. By ensuring that your communications infrastructure is reliable, you can improve business productivity, reduce the risk of lost revenue, and better meet the needs of your customers and stakeholders.
Unified communication increases scalability: Updating your legacy communications infrastructure can help you increase scalability by improving network capacity, enhancing flexibility, increasing collaboration, and reducing costs. By investing in modern communication systems, you can help ensure that your organisation is well-positioned to handle future growth and changing business needs.
Better security: Updating your legacy communications infrastructure can enhance your security by providing more robust encryption, better authentication and access control, automatic security updates, centralised management and monitoring, and meet new compliance with industry standards. These features can help protect your organisation's sensitive data and ensure that your communication systems are secure from potential security threats.
More cost-efficient: Despite the upfront costs associated with upgrading and updating your legacy communications infrastructure, it can be more cost-efficient in the long run because of the lower maintenance costs, increased productivity, reduced downtime, better scalability, and improved security of next-generation systems.
Competitive advantage over firms with outdated tech: Updating legacy communications infrastructure can provide a competitive advantage over firms with outdated technology by improving productivity, enhancing customer service, providing more flexibility, enhancing security, and increasing innovation through access to new and emerging technologies.
More reliable compliance: Updating your legacy communications infrastructure can lead to more reliable compliance to avoid legal and financial consequences by supporting regulatory requirements, reducing the risk of data breaches, providing better audit trails, and providing centralised management and monitoring. This will enable you to avoid legal and financial consequences that you are at risk of when using legacy technology.
Optimised for hybrid work: By adopting modern communication systems, you can better support hybrid work scenarios, enabling your teams to work together more effectively, regardless of their physical location. This is achieved through collaboration tools, cloud-based systems, mobile access, security and compliance features, and integrated systems.
Unified communications are easier to update and maintain: Updating legacy communications infrastructure can be easier to update and maintain due to improved scalability, enhanced automation features, centralised management tools, better support, and improved interoperability with other systems. Adopting modern trading communication systems reduces the time and effort required to maintain and update your communication systems, enabling your organisation to focus on more strategic business activities.
Summary
As you can see, legacy communications systems are no longer fit for purpose in today’s competitive business environment, increasing the risk of system failures, maintenance costs, and the risk of breaching compliance regulations.
However, by updating your legacy communications infrastructure, your business will be better equipped to meet the needs of the modern workplace through a host of benefits, including improved scalability, increased system reliability and enhanced security, helping to protect your organisation's sensitive data.
If you would like to learn more about how Speakerbus’ solutions can help you to achieve your organisational goals, learn more here, or get in touch today.
