Strategic Considerations for Maximizing ROI in Modernization Projects

From the creator

Modernizing legacy applications can feel like a financial leap of faith: the costs are immediate and visible, while the benefits can be harder to quantify and may take time to show up. In this episode of the Azure Essentials Show, host Catherine LaPlant sits down with Tanuja Shah to help you build a clearer, more defensible ROI story for modernization—what typically triggers the need to modernize, what to include on the upfront and ongoing cost side, and how to translate outcomes like faster innovation, reliability, and stronger security into measurable value. The goal is to help IT and business leaders move from “Is this cheaper?” to “Is this more predictable, scalable, and aligned to how the business needs to grow?” Top takeaways - Modernization ROI hinges on making the full cost picture explicit—separating upfront investment (code changes, migration, tools, training, security/compliance work) from ongoing run costs (cloud consumption, support, maintenance, continued skills). - The strongest ROI cases combine savings with value creation: reduced maintenance and downtime, improved scalability and performance, and faster release cycles that support revenue and competitiveness. - Decision confidence comes from benchmarking against today’s reality—including the “cost of doing nothing”—and using staged pilots and measurable milestones to refine the business case over time. Next steps - Inventory one candidate legacy app and capture a baseline: today’s run costs, downtime/relia

Published 2026-06-26 · Watch on YouTube ↗
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