Digital ecosystems and core modernisation are deeply interconnected, as the latter is often integral to enabling the foundational building blocks and agility for businesses to thrive in complex, interconnected ecosystems. Through more centralised and collaborative data and operations, these ecosystems leverage the strengths and insights of multiple disciplines and help speed up decision-making.
Curious to know more, we caught up with our Global SVP, Lorand Gabos-Szoverdi, to ask about how digital ecosystems help drive innovation.
Core modernisation and digital ecosystems are the foundations needed to build digital success, allowing organisations to unlock efficiency, innovation and agility. How would you define the relationship between the two?
Digital ecosystems rely on IT systems and data. If these systems are not nimble and collaborative and data is not accessible or understandable – ecosystems malfunction and don’t bring the expected value, hence the need for modernisation.
Diving deeper, how does core modernisation support businesses succeeding in digital ecosystems?
Core modernisation acts as an enabler, creating modern, interactive systems and liberating data from the clutches of legacy environments. However, it should also focus on delivering value early. It accelerates transformations and reimagines the way ecosystems interact while also enhancing overall user experience, including speed and data relevancy.
You mentioned the need for systems to be nimble and collaborative. What are the most common challenges organisations encounter when aligning legacy systems with the demands of digital ecosystems?
There is often a lack of knowledge and understanding of what the systems do and how, as well as unknown risks creating barriers for investment, or a lack of capabilities, both in organisations and systems. Wrong execution models can also make these transformations a multi-year exercise without any transparency of what is happening at a given point.
How can we at Endava help businesses overcome these challenges?
Our core modernisation approach is built upon a business-led, value-oriented strategy. As the process can be very complex and take several years to implement, Endava uses an iterative, agile framework that delivers value incrementally. We prioritise making significant, meaningful changes to system design and structure, always guided by business needs rather than just technical drivers. Over time, we have refined our methodologies and incorporated accelerators like Compass, Chronos, Maps and Dash to accelerate and de-risk transformations, ensuring alignment with evolving business goals.
Our approach provides benefits such as faster, more accurate, business-driven modernisation, reduced reliance on in-house subject matter experts (SMEs), and access to Agentic AI Virtual SMEs providing guidance and reusable knowledge. Our approach also helps with risk reduction, agility, continuous value delivery and cost efficiency.
Could you share examples of how we helped businesses modernise their core systems to support integration with digital ecosystems?
From rethinking and modernising payment gateways, to delivering modern data platforms, to defining and executing entire landscape modernisation strategies supporting end-to-end cross-company business processes, we have delivered modernisations on various scales, enabling our clients to integrate into existing ecosystems or even start new ones.
And how are digital ecosystems being deployed in the era of AI? What additional benefits or challenges can AI provide?
AI is a massive game changer in digital ecosystems – it changes the way we integrate, interact and extract value out of ecosystems. However, there are major challenges – choosing the right solution, partners and providers, deploying AI-driven systems in production, running and evolving them – while keeping regulations, compliance and ethics top of mind. A complex situation which needs experienced AI leadership and organisations that can effectively execute.
You mentioned the existing challenges with AI and digital ecosystems. How do you think the role of digital ecosystems might evolve in the future?
I see ecosystems creating self-evolving capabilities, inferring new relationships and processes, integrating new sources of information and value, where intelligent automation will be driving their evolution.
For more insights on how digital ecosystems and core modernisation are evolving to create seamlessly interconnected, intelligent networks, visit here.