In today’s fast-moving digital landscape, you can quickly get left behind. Your legacy products, once state-of-the-art, may be ageing. And unlike friendship or a glass of wine at a restaurant, digital products usually don’t always age well. They can result in a sub-par user experience (UX), frustrating your customers/clients so much they look elsewhere.

This problem isn’t going away for anyone, whether you work B2B or B2C. Even the government has run into problems with its digital services. In 2022, the Central Digital & Data Office (CDDO) promised that 50 of the most frequently used digital government services will be upgraded by 2025, which would streamline processes and save £1 billion.

But what is product modernisation, why should you let the experts help and what can they do? Let’s take a look and find some answers.

What is product modernisation & why is it important?

Product modernisation is a strategy in which product features, design, or both, are modified to suit the latest trends, demand and abilities. It can involve enhancing existing applications and systems, improving accessibility, and adding features that future-proof your product.

Product modernisation is important for:

Creating a modern user experience – reducing pain points and enabling a smooth journey that is as efficient or greater than your rivals.
Increasing engagement – the more users engage with your digital products, the greater the chance they spread the word to other potential users.
Improving efficiency – streamlining processes and reducing or even removing inefficient processes and broken elements.
Boosting ROI – improve your UX and hopefully your return on investment (ROI) will increase.
Competitive advantages – modern, comparatively lightweight solutions can help you outperform industry giants that may be stuck in their ways and continuing with decades-old tech.
Happier employees – an increase in user satisfaction and greater ROI will likely make your workforce happier, and in turn increase their productivity.

Key considerations when thinking about product modernisation?

Before you embark on product modernisation for your business, you need to consider the challenges and risks. Are you going to devote time, energy and cost to doing it yourself/in-house? Or will you work with experts in the field?

Things you need to consider:

Will your team be open and willing to potentially overhaul your legacy systems in such a major way? How much will it cost you to train your workforce in your modernised UX or products?
Is it feasible to refresh your legacy systems in one go, or would it create too much upheaval? Could it be easier absorbed into a carefully planned, incremental approach?
Which modernisation approach will best serve your needs? Are you going to need to ‘reinvent the wheel’ or is there a SaaS solution available at a fraction of the price? Can you build on top of your existing software?
Legacy systems can be relatively complex in comparison to more modern technology. So, consider that less can be more and prioritise for simplicity, at least initially.

Why should brands work with product modernisation experts?

If product modernisation is done in-house, it can be a real juggling act. You’ll need to maintain your current product(s) and ensure any changes are made ‘under the hood’ until they’re ready. Otherwise you risk losing your current customer/client base, who could easily look elsewhere while you try and achieve modernisation yourself. Would you rather go it alone, or ask the experts for help, while you concentrate on the day-to-day stuff?

Our approach to product modernisation

If you’d prefer to take the less risky approach and ask creative, experienced problem solvers to modernise your products, you should consider LION+MASON.

Work with us and we become your ‘in-house team’, taking a practitioner-led approach to plug directly into your business.

We’ve got lots of experience dealing with complex systems for professional audiences, including some of the world’s biggest organisations. Product modernisation is one of our many specialities.

Here are some of the key activities we do on product modernisation projects:

Review and evaluate

To gain a complete understanding of your products, users and your field, we’ll work with you without causing disruption. We’ll run workshops, conduct UX & product audits, and engage with your users to create a thorough view of your current product.

Identify issues and opportunities

We’ll identify and map out your core issues and the ways to make improvements. We form a roadmap for innovation by collaboratively prioritising these, based on a system of expected reward vs effort involved.

Concept design and test

Worried about potential concepts not working out? We’ll give you added peace of mind by ideating solutions for priority issues, then create design concepts we can test with real users.

Create detailed designs

We take validated concept designs and can build them out via detailed design sprints. Our end goal is to create a comprehensive design that can be handed over to development.

If you’re interested in our approach to product modernisation, or just want a question answered without sales talk or pitching, get in touch today.