Replatforming: Securing Board and Top Management Team Buy-In

MIT CISR

Stephanie Woerner reads MIT CISR's August 2022 research briefing, which she co-authored with Peter Reynolds, Michael Harte, and Peter Weill. See the text version and related content at https://cisr.mit.edu/publication/2022_0801_ExplainingReplatforming_WoernerReynoldsHarteWeill. Abstract: Enterprises today often replatform as part of their efforts to become Future Ready because the state of their existing systems, data, and processes hinders the organization’s ability to compete in the digital economy. In replatforming, an enterprise transitions legacy applications to cloud platforms and digitizes key components and capabilities. It’s critical that the enterprise’s board and top management team embrace replatforming for the effort to be successful; therefore, effectively explaining replatforming to these stakeholders is a skill that technology leaders, and eventually all leaders, must develop. This briefing describes the opportunities and risks of replatforming approaches and illustrates each approach graphically with a platform map.