Immediate Action Items Tips during the Corona Outbreak
by CEO of Data Migration International: Thomas Failer

We’re really living in pretty unusual times. The coronavirus, along with measures that have been unimaginable in Europe for several decades, are putting our societies, our economies, and each one of us through a stress test. Will we be capable of keeping a cool head? Of adapting our behavior to ensure our healthcare systems don’t get overwhelmed? And of being there for each other?

And what does the future hold for the economy? Will our finances hold out over the next few weeks – or even months – without being shipwrecked? Suddenly, we’re all asking ourselves existential questions, while governments and central banks have got their hands full helping companies to survive and secure jobs and incomes.

For decision-makers, now is the moment to navigate by sight. It won’t be a problem for strategic projects to wait a few weeks. What’s required now are tactics and projects that help to improve liquidity quickly. This can be achieved by reducing or postponing expenses for things that are not needed immediately, as well as by making clever investment decisions. Given the current situation, investments are clever when they do two things: deliver payback in the short term; and reduce costs over the medium and long term.

Clever investment

Decommissioning legacy systems is one such clever investment. Companies will start saving operating costs after just a few weeks – and compared to running the system, these savings are usually as high as 80 percent. It’s clear from this that the return on the investment won’t take long. For example, our customer ABB Turbocharging achieved a savings potential of 300,000 euros just by getting rid of a single system. And as concerns the time needed to do it, the Swiss midsized firm Meier-Tobler used our software to decommission an HR system in just four weeks and managed to avoid paying a further year’s charges to the outsourcing service provider for the operation of the system.

Most IT environments have grown over time and are heterogeneous. It’s easy to calculate your potential savings, even if you only decommission 1 in 5 of your legacy systems. Plus: the fewer legacy systems you have left, the lower the cost of migrating to a new software generation. And application retirements are a key way to help you harmonize your IT infrastructure after mergers & acquisitions and consolidate entire IT locations.

Pragmatic action

Application retirements are tactical projects in their own right. Yet they can make a positive contribution to your strategic plans, too. They’re worth it in the short term and also have a beneficial effect on a wide range of business and application scenarios over the longer term.

So, let’s do in our jobs what we’re doing in our private life: dealing with what’s close to us, focusing on each next step, and ensure we make our contribution.

From our side, we’ll certainly do everything we can in the next few weeks to offer a pragmatic way forward. We’ll be giving our staff the best protection while delivering the quality of service you’re used to. Let’s look out for each other.

Thomas Failer