Technical debt cannot be ignored – get ahead of risk factors and understand the importance of Technology Assessment
By Imran Aftab
Imran Aftab is the Co-Founder & CEO of 10Pearls, a global digital transformation company helping businesses innovate, digitalize, and scale.
Why technology assessments are the key to successful digital transformation projects
Blog contents
While the term digital transformation used to refer to the foundational stages of moving from analog to digital, its default meaning has evolved in 2024. Today, most companies that plan to embark on these projects do so to re-engineer existing processes or develop new services to drive business value.
Digital transformation also helps organizations keep ahead of disruptive technology trends and avoid being overtaken by competitors. The 2022 CEO Outlook report from KPMG cited emerging technologies as one of the top three challenges to organizational growth. Further, 72% of CEOs surveyed saw digital investments as a continuing priority.
However, a separate study from McKinsey analyzing the success of digital transformation projects highlighted a worrying chasm between expectation and reality, with only 20% of firms achieving close to anticipated revenue gains.
The uncomfortable truth is that many businesses aren’t structurally ready to realize the full potential of these initiatives. Developing a new app may help to deliver some initial efficiency improvements, but if the underlaying infrastructure hasn’t been rewired, it won’t deliver the expected gains. This approach not only curtails the efficiency of individual apps and services but also makes it harder to justify such investments in the future.
Conducting a comprehensive technology assessment prior to any new projects can help make a more informed technology investment decision. The most successful digital projects carefully consider where gains can be made by optimizing the existing infrastructure and where new tools or products are required.
A comprehensive assessment of platforms, applications, processes, and systems is key to understanding how to scale an existing solution or identify and mitigate any bottlenecks. Here are three things to look out for when conducting a technology assessment.
How clean code supports future innovation
A technology assessment needs to thoroughly examine the entire codebase.
This process will identify inconsistencies, vulnerabilities, violations of code design, or deviations from best practices. It should also highlight how the system can be optimized by removing repeated instances of error handling.
Even if the organization’s system is currently functioning well, this stage should always be considered essential. Coding protocols and languages are constantly evolving, which means issues can creep into the infrastructure if comprehensive reviews are not conducted regularly.
While the problems may take time to become apparent to users, errors and bugs compound over time, leading to high lag times, unreliable systems, and even security vulnerabilities.
Addressing any coding issues found during the technology assessment acts as preparation for the actual project. Given that the cost of poor software quality in the US has grown to at least $2.41 trillion, the value of maintaining clean code can’t be ignored.
Why technical debt cannot be ignored
Your assessment must closely examine the technical debt within your system.
Technical debt typically occurs when development decisions focus on speed over quality, using quick fixes and patches as a sticking plaster instead of full-scale solutions. While most companies do not actively pursue such an approach, external forces mean technical debt is likely a reality for most.
The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a wave of rapid digital transformation projects as organizations had to adapt to the situation with immediate solutions. The urgency has made them reactive, preventing them from addressing underlying technology issues.
However, these quick solutions have adverse ripple effects on the systems, making it crucial to address technical promptly. Doing so allows companies to reduce waste in their IT budgets and unlock performance gains.
According to Gartner, actively managing and reducing this debt can achieve at least 50% faster service delivery times to businesses.
Addressing technical debt before beginning a new transformation project ensures that you’re building on firm foundations. The assessment should examine the overall system architecture, including software design patterns, module dependencies, data flow, and integration points. This will help identify areas for optimization to improve system performance and scalability.
Get ahead of risk factors
Finally, understanding the potential risks associated with your digital transformation project is crucial for mitigating them.
Integrating new applications into an existing architecture may create compatibility issues and compromise highly valuable data. Your technology assessment should examine whether new solutions could cause data loss or corruption during implementation.
It should also consider any factors that may cause system downtime to proactively find a solution. In short, the risk assessment will serve as a foundation for the subsequent delivery roadmap, ensuring the project progresses smoothly, on schedule, and without costly problems that need to be addressed hastily.
Technology assessment: worth the investment
Investing in a technology assessment may initially seem like an unnecessary additional expense. However, it can help save costs by reducing risks, streamlining systems, and identifying problems before development begins.
Technology Assessment
Comprehensive assessment of platforms, applications, processes, and systems to inform your technology investment decisions
