Analysis. Implementation. Handover.

A customer came to us running a system they should have ended and renewed long ago. They've known this for a while, but were struggling to find a partner to go along with them through this crucial process for their company.

There was no lack of technical proposals to migrate and move to new platforms — but there was always a gap between old and new that opened too wide for continuous operations to be guaranteed.

What they needed now wasn't a grand migration plan. It was interfaces to third-party systems, urgently needed so their customers wouldn't move on to other partners.

So we went looking for hooks — places in the existing system we could anchor an interface to without disturbing everything around it.

That meant going through the system the way it's used day by day. Documenting the wiring of the business logic, analysing data structures and existing interfaces. Some research into existing data connectors didn't show satisfying results.

Only the development of a bespoke solution could open the door we were looking for.

Modern technology opened possibilities that weren't available until recently. What would have taken months of research and development now can be done within a few days. A series of tests showed reliable, accurate access to the data.

It went live in pieces. The first interface covered the most urgent connection — the one keeping customers from walking.

The rest followed once that one held up under real, daily use. Nothing was switched over in one move, and the old system kept running exactly as it had, untouched underneath the new connector sitting on top of it.

With the connectors running and proven, the work shifted from building to explaining. What we'd found during analysis, and what we'd built to bridge it, was written down in plain terms — not just for us to remember, but for whoever at the customer's side would need to maintain it once we'd moved on.

Feedback from daily use shaped the final adjustments. Small things only visible once real people were relying on the connection every day in their actual business.

With this step done, new doors did open. Following tasks included more gateways to third-party systems of suppliers and customers. A long-awaited web portal finally became a manageable task.

And outsourcing processes from the legacy system into a state-of-the-art SaaS opened up further paths to a full replacement in the future.