Digital transformation examples: Say goodbye to legacy IT

One of the most challenging aspects of digital transformation strategy is replacing legacy technology with modern systems that are more flexible, scalable, and future-proof. The good news? We have a solution. Innovative tech leaders have found that a low-code development platform like OutSystems is a game-changer in achieving their modernization goals.

Here are five digital transformation case studies that show how leading organizations have successfully turned their legacy systems into modern powerhouses. These digital transformation examples reveal insights and strategies to help you do the same. All you need is an enterprise low-code development platform to refactor, rebuild, and extend them into flexible and scalable solutions that meet your organization’s evolving demands.

Digital transformation examples: How 5 companies replaced legacy IT

Cengage: Productivity gains with Salesforce integration

Computer and technology, US

Cengage, a global technology company that creates employee learning experiences, found that its Student Services staff were clicking in and out of Salesforce to find the information they needed. This was wasting time and degrading the employee and customer experience. However, extending Salesforce with new capabilities using traditional methods would be costly and time-consuming.

So, Cengage adopted OutSystems, and its engineers created a new UI inside Salesforce that easily pulled in the additional data. “Basically any application that we need to build or any legacy application, we can rewrite that in OutSystems,” says Doug Mealing, Division CTO at Cengage, “resulting in significantly lower maintenance costs and delivering more value across the business than traditionally we could use a classic .NET or Java development approach.”

The company soon proved that by building a solution—Ready to Hire—using OutSystems exclusively at a third of the cost of other development processes. This mission-critical application creates new talent pipelines for employers through dedicated train-to-hire programs, upskilling of current talent, and connecting employers to pre-qualified candidates.

See how Cengage modernized Salesforce capabilities

HEINEKEN: Modernizing through federated development teams

Consumer Goods, The Netherlands

HEINEKEN, one of the world’s most iconic beer brands, is driving a company-wide strategy called EverGreen to future-proof its business, become a connected brewer, and meet the demands of a fast-changing world.

With big development needs and even bigger goals, HEINEKEN rolled out a federated development model with the support of platforms like OutSystems. With this model, the brewing company has successfully scaled app development globally while maintaining the company’s high security and quality standards across every solution.

To support this model, HEINEKEN relies on reusable components that allow decentralized units to quickly build solutions using code curated by the central team. Easy customization allow regional teams to easily customize components provided by the central team and meet different languages, local preferences, and legal requirements. Superior UX/UI drives the development of visually appealing and user-friendly applications.

Learn more about HEINEKEN’s federated model

Park Industries: Transforming legacy apps into brand new solutions

Manufacturing, US

Park Industries is a family-owned stone and metal machinery manufacturer based in Minnesota, USA, with a small IT team but a huge inventory of custom applications. The list includes 80+ apps built 15 years ago spread across multiple enterprise systems. As a result, the company often dealt with duplicated and inaccurate data that prevented Park Industries from growing at the pace the market demanded. Park Industries also relied heavily on paper-based processes.

The company knew it had to modernize its operations, but it struggled to develop new software with its four-person development team.

With OutSystems, Park Industries consolidated its previously dispersed app ecosystem, resulting in improved process efficiency and, consequently, better customer experience. More than 65 legacy apps were transformed into 26 OutSystems apps with expanded capabilities, and Park Industries saved $350,000.

“On average, one OutSystems app replaces four legacy apps, and we’re able to build it 10x faster than traditional development,” says David Lloyd, Director of IT at Park Industries.

Read the full Park Industries story

Petrobras: Freeing innovation from legacy tech

Energy and utilities, Brazil

Petrobras, one of the world’s largest energy companies, planned to invest $2.1 billion in IT digital transformation and innovation. However, its efforts were hampered by more than 2,000 legacy apps developed with multiple technologies, including .NET, Java, Delphi, Flex, and Lotus Notes.

The company established a low-code center of excellence, using OutSystems to enable a new culture: agile development at scale. It quickly developed 48 applications in just eight months and modernized legacy systems–while ensuring compliance with cybersecurity standards and quality control.

The Petrobras Center of Excellence supports over 100 agile teams that can focus on innovation instead of maintaining legacy applications. Petrobras has used OutSystems to increase productivity and reduce the development time for new applications by up to 60% compared to its previous process.

Read how Petrobras embraced agile development at scale

CGI: Why low-code was the secret weapon to move beyond legacy systems

Corporate services, Canada

For more than 10 years, leading IT and business consultancy CGI has helped a large network of brokers and insurers reconcile their accounts.

However, CGI’s legacy system—built on Oracle Forms in the early 2000s to handle insurance broker accounting processes that have since been superseded–was showing its age. Ongoing system enhancement and maintenance were becoming increasingly expensive and time-consuming.

Using OutSystems, a small internal team was able to launch a full redesign in only 6 months–4X faster than using traditional development tools. The reengineered system is a highly flexible and scalable enterprise-class platform running as a fully managed service. The new system led to a 20-30% improvement in operating costs, improved cash flow, and a reduction in issue resolution time for the firm’s insurance clients.

Read the full story of how CGI moved beyond legacy systems

Accelerate the benefits of digital transformation with OutSystems

When it comes to modernizing your legacy systems for IT digital transformation, take it from these industry leaders and many others: OutSystems provides the technology and support you need to ensure a fluid move from old systems to new opportunities.

Power your digital transformation strategy with OutSystems. Reimagine your legacy systems as flexible cloud-native apps that integrate with existing systems for faster performance. Extend systems with fresh features and functionality to unlock value. And rebuild core systems at a quicker pace with AI-driven drag-and-drop development.

Ready to break free from legacy systems? Learn how to modernize better and faster with OutSystems.