The Reality of Transitioning Away From Legacy Oracle EBS and Peoplesoft

I recently attended a significant tech conference, often thought to be the largest of its kind, where I had the opportunity to engage with over a hundred individuals from the United States and around the world. As I discussed various issues important to them, my messaging became increasingly refined and focused.

I was surprised, though not shocked, by the ongoing responses I got after asking some questions: Do you use Oracle EBS or PSFT, and are you worried about eventually transitioning away from outdated or legacy applications?

I often received the same response: "Yes, we do use legacy applications, and yes we are worried!" This only deepened my curiosity. After doing some more digging, I uncovered the core of the matter. It required some good old-fashioned storytelling to encourage them to open up, as most people prefer not to reveal everything too quickly.

I shared an older story from my time as a compliance and governance software representative, which helped ease the conversation. Once they felt comfortable enough to share more, I got to the issue—they felt trapped. Their most critical data, the lifeblood of the company, was stored in various systems, some still in production and others not. Despite this, they had clear instructions: accelerate the pace of digital transformation and modernization!

They all understood that those environments could take much longer, possibly even years, to fully transition. Their voices reflected stress and concern about this.

"We cannot retire them yet because we have too much data, and we don't want to move all of it, if we can avoid it."

Of course, I asked why.

In summary, they didn't have the tools, resources, or full-scale knowledge of the data sitting in those legacy applications and they'll need to access the data immediately when they get a request for reporting, compliance, legal, HR, or the data analytics team. They were also very concerned about the time and resources it would take to "rebuild" the reporting structure they needed once the legacy application was fully retired. This seemed to come up repeatedly in multiple conversations.

I recall one part of the conversation where "skill set" was a major issue. Many of the people that were skilled in legacy platforms were no longer with the organization, leaving the tasks of reporting to someone else. Of course, they were concerned about responding to a compliance request in a timely manner.

It took some control not to launch into my pitch, but almost thirty years of selling will train you about timing.

Enough storytelling, here are the facts:

Companies are transitioning away from legacy applications such as Oracle E-Business Suite and PeopleSoft – in most cases, it's inevitable. The direction has been set to modernize, move more to the cloud environment, or move to a new vendor. Whether you like it or not, it's happening either way. It is just a matter of time. I think it's safe to say that it's vital for organizations to meet the growing needs for agility, security, cost-effectiveness, and scalability in today's dynamic business landscape.

Resolving this challenge can be overwhelming, and many organizations have had difficult experiences with this initiative. In my discussions, I recall several individuals visibly reacting with discomfort as we delved into the specifics. Often, projects were either excessively lengthy or ended up being very costly. In many instances, they were both lengthy and costly, since longer projects generally result in much higher expenses.

Many people were surprisingly unaware that they didn't need to keep the old, outdated application as is. They assumed it had to be kept for a certain period, even after the dormant/inactive data had been archived or retired. As we know, sometimes it's just hard letting go of the old to embrace the new. Once it's completely understood that the legacy application is not what's important, that, in fact, it's the data that matters, the conversation shifts.

Enter infoCorvus and ROAD.

At infoCorvus, a leader in helping enterprises with this initiative, we believe that prioritizing this effort is essential for organizations.

Why?

First and foremost – keeping legacy systems as is, is a waste of money! There are many cost-saving benefits from retiring legacy systems and inactive/dormant data:

Just a few:

• Lower Maintenance and Licensing Costs
• Decreased Hardware, Infrastructure, and Energy Expenses
• Reduced Compliance and Security Expenses
• Reduced Digital Transformation Expenses
• Lower Opportunity Cost and Increased Revenue Potential (I.e. faster Time to Market / Focus on Innovation)
• Reduced Risk of Compliance Fines and Brand Reputational Damage

Security and data accessibility are very important, often considered the top priorities by many. I agree with this perspective, but the significance may vary depending on the specific business and how they view the importance of their data. Personally, I prioritize cost savings first because "cash is king." By freeing up the budget, companies can invest in newer and more essential technologies that support ongoing digital transformation, AI, enhance data privacy and security and reduce the risk of incurring millions in compliance fines or, worse, falling victim to a ransomware attack.

There are many other reasons why this should be a priority but if cost-savings and data compliance/security benefits don't pique your interest by now, I'm not sure the rest will.

So, what's the bottom line? There is a very simple solution to this challenge.

Thanks to years of thought leadership and industry experience, the team at infoCorvus has built the platform to tackle the challenge of ensuring you're not wasting money on legacy applications while preserving all the necessary data access needed for compliance and reporting requirements. Efficiency, ease of use, and extensibility were top of mind during this build. You can now retire those outdated, legacy applications with the "peace of mind" that it will be a much shorter process – providing point and click functionality, configurable and reusable prebuilt reporting for EBS and PSFT for every instance you need to retire.

Please visit our ROAD and Application Retirement for Oracle E‑Business Suite pages if you are interested in learning more.