October 07, 2025
5 Legacy Modernization Examples from Our Practice to Inspire Your Strategy
At Artkai, we modernize several products of varying complexity every year. Our team has partnered with businesses across various industries, helping them move beyond the limitations of legacy apps and unlock new capabilities with application modernization.
In this article, we share 5 legacy modernization examples that can inspire your company to embark on digital transformation. Each case demonstrates how the modernization of legacy systems helps overcome challenges, how a properly selected approach enhances business processes leading to success, and what outcomes businesses achieve afterwards. So, welcome to take a look at all the befores and afters.
KMC Commander Platform
Our client, KMC Controls, is an independent American manufacturer of open, secure, and scalable building automation and technology solutions. The company collaborates with leading technology providers to create innovative products that help customers optimize energy usage, increase operational efficiency, maximize comfort, and enhance safety.
This project is an application modernization example where Artkai transformed legacy systems of KMC Commander, a unified IoT platform that helps control air quality, humidity, and temperature inside buildings by collecting data within the building and sending it to the cloud. With it, users can securely track, trend, and trigger their systems and devices from anywhere.
Client Challenges
The client approached us with an application modernization initiative that would enable them to manage various air parameters within buildings through a single dashboard. The existing KMC Commander system they employed was outdated and inconsistent, and had essential UX problems.
The market didn't offer a customizable solution that allowed for displaying current data and managing devices simultaneously. So, a great deal of manual work was required to verify the metrics and adjust air quality accordingly.
The major challenge for the Artkai team in this application modernization process was not only to breathe new life into the KMC Commander, but also to join the transformation journey of the modern smart building ecosystem domain.
Our Approach
The modernization approach was composed around several essential aspects:
- Performing a deep audit of the current solution and using it as a foundation for building a step-by-step redesign action plan
- Building a universal and flexible solution that can be seamlessly tailored to the client's scale
- Making the system dashboard easy to understand, so that even users with low or moderate levels of tech literacy can conveniently make informed decisions based on the received metrics
Modernization Process
Modernising the legacy systems, we went through a set of carefully planned steps of the transformation journey, including:
- Product discovery and client interview to understand business requirements and goals, and gain clarity on customer needs, motivations, and behaviors
- Creating user personas and a customer journey map
- Preparing the backlog of tasks with clear prioritization
- Creating the development-friendly visual concept and a clickable prototype that represents the core functionalities
- Developing the platform on the basis of an efficient and scalable tech stack
The solution functionality we offered included
- a clear dashboard with key points for user interaction with the system
- easy customization, which allowed displaying the specific devices' data and sensor metrics with a higher priority
- plugins that provided additional options to work with the acquired data
- thoughtful onboarding that built intuitive communication between devices and users
- alarms and notifications, enabling better shared management of the system across the user groups
- built-in security from edge to cloud, including IoT-friendly communication, data encryption, whitelisting/blacklisting
Before / After
Before: inconsistency and UX issues; limited tech stack, hard to scale; non-customizable solutions complicated to use for people with low and moderate tech literacy levels
After: a trailblazing customizable solution for easy-to-use and manage dashboards meeting the needs of different categories of users; an innovative approach to system schedules and alarms; handy onboarding; seamless integration of cloud-based solutions for better performance; built-in security from edge to cloud
Outcomes & Business Value
Having undergone comprehensive modernization, the KMC Commander has become a strong foundation for a modern, smart building ecosystem that helps thousands of users to optimize energy usage, increase operational efficiency, maximize comfort, and ensure a safe environment.
Among the major outcomes of the legacy software modernization for the client’s business goals, we could mention:
- 35% of average users' growth, higher rates of user engagement and satisfaction
- X1.5 decreased churn rate
- Unprecedented integration capabilities into building systems are achieved by utilizing open yet secure protocols
- Considerably enhanced opportunities for the facilities managers to visualize indoor air quality, collect and tag data, create schedules, view history and trends, add key security elements to systems, or receive texts and email alarms.
- The well-thought-out system simplified connecting with partners, with a growing list of 150 of them, including prominent industry names such as Intel and Amazon.
Check more about the project in the detailed case study of the KMC Commander platform modernization
Roche HCP Portal Modernization
In this project, the Artkai team provided legacy modernization services to Roche Switzerland, one of the world’s largest biotech companies, a leading provider of in vitro diagnostics, and a creator of innovative healthtech solutions.
The company approached us with a request to modernize their multifunctional HCP portal, a digital resource center that gave medical professionals access to comprehensive product information, scientific materials, and educational resources. They wanted our team to conduct in-depth UX research and perform a strategic redesign of their legacy portal to enhance digital collaboration and engagement between Roche and healthcare professionals.
Client Challenges
The HCP portal presented a feature-rich solution that was appreciated by many healthcare providers; however, over time, its usability declined, resulting in lower engagement from the target audience. The outdated design and lack of critical functionality limited the digital product’s practical value to both Roche representatives and healthcare specialists, leading to Roche missing opportunities for impactful collaboration and support.
Partnering with Artkai, the company aimed to achieve a meaningful redesign of the HCP portal, making it up-to-date, user-centric, and engaging.
We started with an in-depth research and audit and discovered several challenges to tackle:
- User engagement issues. The limited utility of the legacy platform hampered the portal's daily use.
- Outdated functionalities. The structure and functionality weren’t aligned with actual user needs, resulting in low adoption rates.
- Complex content navigation. It was difficult for healthcare specialists to navigate the portal, which badly affected the perceived value of available resources.
Our Approach
The approach to the legacy modernization of the platform for healthcare specialists included:
- Deep research identifying reasons for low engagement and decreased portal use, and suggesting a redesign strategy that would elevate user experience and improve portal functionality for HCPs
- Comprehensive user-centered redesign to provide users with a portal tailored to the daily needs of healthcare professionals, facilitating access to vital information on Roche products and providing structured support materials
- Boosting portal engagement and establishing a data-driven approach to drive sustained user interest
- Optimization of the portal to enhance the connection between Roche representatives and HCPs, establishing a responsive and collaborative digital environment.
Modernization Process
The redesign modernization strategy was based on several important dimensions:
- User-centric information architecture. An intuitive content structure was built in line with the needs of HCPs and enabled easier navigation and access to essential resources.
- User interface design improvement. The modern UI concept was designed to cater to HCP workflows and concentrated on usability and quick access to critical information.
- Functional improvements. Analyzing user feedback, the updated platform prioritized features such as the integration of scientific material, improved process for ordering printed materials, and expanded educational resources.
The legacy modernization process for this project included the analysis and research phase with:
- In-depth stakeholder and user research, including stakeholder and target audience interviews
- Online workshop for collaborative insights gathering
- Transforming insights into actionable deliverables such as personas, customer journey mapping, and a value proposition canvas
- Consolidation of all findings into a prioritized backlog and a clear redesign roadmap, which included enhanced content accessibility, portal usability improvements, and educational content expansion.
The redesign stage allowed us to provide the client with:
- modern and user-centric design
- improved user navigation
- optimization and expansion of the portal functionality
- new intuitive UX
- meeting the highest standards for usability and accessibility
- multiple user testing sessions with healthcare professionals
Before / After
Before: outdated user interface and interaction process, complicated customer experience, limited functionality not corresponding to user expectations and needs, and user engagement issues
After: improved usability, extended functionality, and an accessible, handy user interface, revitalizing the platform's role as a digital resource for healthcare professionals.
Outcomes & Business Value
Through our well-thought-out and carefully planned modernization strategy, the platform was renewed and refreshed, thereby enhancing its communication and business value.
In particular, the major outcomes included:
- A considerable improvement in user experience was achieved by building the portal structure around the daily needs and workflows of HCPs, significantly enhancing ease of use and resource accessibility.
- Traffic and user engagement increased significantly due to user-centered design solutions
- Boosted stakeholder satisfaction is observed, as the portal now meets the needs of both internal and external stakeholders, aligning with Roche’s objectives to provide a valuable and accessible resource for healthcare professionals.
Check more about the project in the detailed case study of the Roche HCP Portal insurance platform modernization.
EquiX Trading Platform
Artkai partnered with Summit Holdings Group, a US-based fintech company with extensive experience in the investment sector and specializing in providing online solutions for stock trading, ETFs, bonds, and other traditional financial instruments. The company's core product is the EquiX, a trading platform that serves thousands of retail investors, semi-professional traders, and wealth management clients.
We were requested to help them modernize their trading platform, transforming legacy systems and solutions into a modern, user-friendly product with a reliable and scalable technical foundation.
Client Challenges
The client wanted to modernize the legacy platform, which hadn’t had big updates for years. At first glance, it was obvious that the outdated user interface and inconsistent user flows failed to meet the current needs and expectations of investors and traders. Yet, a closer look revealed that the issues were deeper, as the codebase presented a mix of outdated frontend libraries and monolithic server logic, which resulted in serious performance and scalability issues.
Major challenges to cope with for the legacy modernization included:
- Outdated technologies of the legacy platform with tight coupling between frontend and backend logic.
- Inconsistent coding and a lack of documentation, which required reverse engineering before refactoring
- Essential real-time features, such as instant order book updates or push notifications, were impossible to support with the legacy backend
- The backend integration and maintaining compatibility required efficient meeting of internal trading APIs, third-party data vendors, and security layers.
Our Approach
The legacy app modernization required close analysis and a comprehensive approach to all aspects of performance and interaction. We offered problem-solving solutions for all major facets, including design and development for the web platform and mobile application, as well as testing automation and addressing security and compliance issues associated with the changes.
In particular, the approach included:
- Extensive redesign of user journeys with a focus on intuitiveness, accessibility, and scalability
- Comprehensive updating of the tech stack based on a mix of modernization strategies
- Introduction of automated testing and setting up CI/CD pipelines
Modernization Process
The aspect of user experience design was critical to ensure the successful improvement of the platform, and it included:
- Deep product discovery, defining pain points, and redesign of the user experience across product touchpoints such as market dashboards, stock detail pages, order flows, and portfolio management
- Enhanced accessibility, real-time data display, and responsive layouts across web and mobile
- Scalable, reusable component library and unified styles with custom theming and design tokens
The development stage of the modernization process included:
- Efficient migration from legacy jQuery-based frontend to React for the web platform
- Fully rebuilt mobile application with React Native, sharing logic and unified design between mobile and web
- Implementing modern state management using Redux Toolkit and introducing Code Splitting for better performance.
- Refactoring of the monolithic server into modular services
- Building new APIs for order execution and portfolio syncing, while implementing a WebSocket service for live stock data feeds
- Adding middleware for effective authentication, rate-limiting, and compliance checks
One more impactful point of the modernization strategy to mention was testing and CI/CD setup, for which our team:
- Introduced automated testing across the stack at the frontend and backend levels
- Set up CI/CD pipelines
Security and compliance side involved:
- Migrating authentication to more modern and secure solutions.
- Ensuring compliance with all requirements regarding data privacy, audit trails, and consent management.
Before / After
Before: confusing structure; overwhelming content; low engagement; inability to efficiently implement features expected by users.
After: clean, modular user interface; handy, clear, and easy-to-use dashboards; scalable UI and tech solutions; modern infrastructure; straightforward data visualization; high performance and reduced technical debt; alignment with compliance and security requirements for fintech products.
Outcomes & Business Value
Through the platform redesign and migration to a modern tech stack, we equipped our client with solutions that set a solid foundation for future modernization initiatives. A modular, scalable software architecture facilitates easier integration of new features and third-party tools. The approach to legacy modernization helped to reduce technical debt and simplify onboarding for future development teams.
In particular, even the first months after launch showed promising results, such as:
- 63% growth in mobile usage thanks to the new React Native app and simplified user flows
- 28% increase in customer satisfaction based on NPS and in-app feedback
- 42% fewer support requests related to platform navigation and usability
- Modernized backend services and the addition of reusable frontend components enabled our client to reduce infrastructure and maintenance costs, thereby strengthening the market position.
Learn more about the project in the detailed case study on the EquiX trading platform modernization.
Policy Hub Insurance Platform
In this case of app modernization examples, we collaborated with a leading insurance provider in the United States. The company offers a diversity of insurance products, including auto, life, health, and travel insurance, and serves thousands of customers.
The client approached the Artkai team with a request to modernize the legacy insurance management platform, PolicyHub, making it more scalable and user-friendly.
Client Challenges
At the outset of our collaboration, the company's customers already used the platform on a daily basis. Yet, having been built with outdated technologies, it began to exhibit signs of slow performance, security vulnerabilities, and a poor user experience. What’s more, the legacy platform wasn’t properly optimized for mobile and had critical UX issues that negatively impacted user engagement and satisfaction.
An in-depth audit by our team discovered challenges the platform faced, among them:
- The outdated tech stack was complicated to maintain and scale
- Poor UX and complex UI made policy management difficult for customers
- Slow manual claims processing caused delays and inefficiencies
- Limited mobile accessibility due to using a hybrid mobile app that lacked native performance and essential features
- Scalability issues made it hard to cope with a growing number of users and policies
Our Approach
To set the strategy for modernizing PolicyHub, our team focused on enhancing its core features to deliver a seamless customer experience. Prioritizing usability, security, automation, and cross-platform accessibility, we strived to ensure that users benefit from a smarter and more intuitive insurance platform.
The modernization approach was built around a set of objectives, in particular:
- UI/UX redesign increasing usability, learnability, and user engagement of the digital product
- Tech stack modernization improving performance and supporting higher security and scalability
- Processing time reduction by optimization of policy and claims management
- Development of a responsive web application enhanced with new features
- Building an intuitive, highly performing mobile app
- Integration of AI-powered assistance functionality to enhance customer support
Modernization Process
Accomplishing the modernization of the legacy web application of Policy Hub, we reconsidered, improved, integrated, and implemented a set of essential features, in particular:
- Policy Management: Users can browse, purchase, and manage diverse insurance types in one convenient space.
- Policy Comparison: We implemented a side-by-side comparison tool for evaluating different insurance options.
- Cost Calculator: An AI-powered tool helps users to easily estimate premiums based on their data.
- Active Policies: A dashboard was built to display all active policies, renewal dates, and payment statuses.
- Claims Management: Users can easily submit claims, upload supporting documents, and track their progress in real-time.
- Payments & Billing: Users can make secure online payments, set auto-renewals, and view transaction history.
- AI Recommendations: AI-driven policy suggestions are personalized based on the user’s behavior and life events.
- Support & FAQ: AI-powered chatbot, clear knowledge base, and the option to communicate with an agent directly were integrated.
Another important perspective of the legacy modernization process was designing and building a mobile application, as the platform hadn’t had one. The Artkai team guided the client through the entire process of creating a modern mobile application from scratch, ensuring that platform users would enjoy a convenient, cross-platform user experience.
The functionality of the modernized application, in particular, included:
- Biometric authentication for quick, secure access (Touch ID / Face ID Login)
- Booking a doctor's appointment
- Integration of a digital wallet
- Insurance coverage details
- Insurance policy archive
- Policy selection and customization
- Branch locator and contact support
- Personalized assistance
- Special loyalty programs are increasing user retention and loyalty
Based on the nature of the existing software, we provided our client with a seamless transition to the new, well-thought-out tech stack, facilitating dynamic and responsive user interfaces. The development team ensured high code quality and maintainability, while also supporting scalability and operational efficiency through the wise integration of cloud technologies.
Before / After
Before: slow performance, security vulnerabilities, complicated user experience, limited mobile accessibility
After: intuitive, convenient user interface design of the digital products of the platform, driving higher customer engagement, streamlined operations, secure and scalable tech stack, improved policy and claims management.
Outcomes & Business Value
In this case of legacy application examples, the collaboration resulted in the efficient transformation of the existing software and the development of a new mobile application that aligned with the evolving business needs. It enabled our client to boost performance and customer experience to a new level.
Among the important outcomes of meeting the business objectives behind the modernization, we can mention:
- 30% faster claims processing due to automation and AI-driven workflows that reduced delays
- A 40% increase in customer retention was achieved through improved UX and personalized recommendations, which significantly boosted user engagement.
- Cross-platform accessibility with a mobile app, providing a seamless insurance management experience on both iOS and Android.
- Higher user engagement due to a mobile app that offers push notifications, real-time updates, and a mobile-friendly payment schedule that simplifies policy management.
- Better scalability and security with a cloud-based infrastructure, ensuring high availability and data protection, and a modular architecture
Check more about the project in the detailed case study about PolicyHub insurance platform modernization.
Merchant Pay Payment Platform
This is one more of our legacy modernization examples in the fintech sphere. Here, Artkai was involved in the digital transformation journey of a US-based fintech company that provides merchant payment solutions for small and mid-sized businesses. The service enables its customers to manage payments, orders, and customer interactions seamlessly. For this, the platform offers a comprehensive ecosystem of digital payment tools, including online payment processing, POS systems, and NFC/QR-based transactions and loyalty programs.
Setting a mission to simplify transactions, enhance customer experiences, and drive business growth, the company strives to meet the evolving needs of its software users, particularly the growing demand for cashless transactions and contactless payments. In search of more advanced and scalable solutions, they approached us with a request to perform an audit and carry out an application modernization process for their go-to payment platform, MerchantPay.
Client Challenges
Our cooperation began by defining the key pain points and challenges that the client’s existing product faced. After conducting a detailed audit, our team found that the payment platform was outdated, unable to meet the needs of a rapidly evolving market, as it demonstrated considerable limitations that impacted the existing system's user experience, performance, and scalability.
Key challenges of the legacy app modernization included:
- Legacy infrastructure and performance issues. The monolithic architecture resulted in slow API responses, high server loads, and delayed order processing, while outdated frontend and mobile solutions led to poor user experience and maintenance difficulties. On-premise hosting significantly limited scalability and increased operational costs.
- Inefficiency of POS and order management. Order fulfillment delays occur due to the absence of real-time inventory synchronization across POS systems. Multi-location businesses faced challenges in manually tracking stock levels and transactions. Lack of self-ordering kiosks and automation resulted in longer wait times and lower efficiency.
- Limited payment and loyalty features. Lack of seamless omnichannel payments (NFC, QR codes, Apple Pay, Google Pay) and basic loyalty and rewards programs hadn’t provided enough support for user retention and engagement. Additionally, tip management was manual, resulting in inefficiencies in revenue distribution for service businesses.
- Security and compliance risks. Fraud detection was manual, and it increased the risk of chargebacks and unauthorized transactions. Weak authentication mechanisms lacked role-based access controls (RBAC) and multi-factor authentication (MFA).
Our Approach
The legacy modernization approach focused on enhancing the payment platform's competitiveness, scalability, and future-proofness. To provide that, we aimed at:
- Shift to scalable, cloud-native infrastructure
- Creating next-gen POS and order management
- Automating order tracking, fulfillment, and reconciliation to reduce manual efforts
- Ensuring frictionless payments and customer engagement
Modernization Process
To address the limitations of the legacy software, we redesigned the entire software architecture, transitioning to a microservices-based, cloud-native approach.
The application modernization project involved:
- Decoupling frontend and backend for independent scalability.
- Adopting a high-performance, real-time API architecture with GraphQL.
- Ensuring a native mobile experience by replacing Cordova with React Native.
- Enhancing POS integrations for real-time transactions and inventory tracking.
- Moving to cloud hosting to reduce infrastructure costs and enable auto-scaling.
The selected tech stack included the latest technologies that ensured speed, security, and long-term maintainability. For this application modernization journey, Artkai's strategy included:
- System audit and deep product discovery. We identified key bottlenecks and scalability constraints of the existing software, mapped out mission-critical functionalities, and created a step-by-step migration plan to ensure a smooth transition.
- Web and mobile experience overhaul. Migration from an outdated tech stack to modern, well-tested solutions significantly improved performance, maintainability, and developer productivity. In addition, we provided a true native experience across iOS and Android, implemented a unified design system, and ensured brand consistency and a seamless user experience across devices.
- Microservices and API modernization. The monolithic backend was decomposed into scalable microservices. The implemented technology solutions also enabled efficient data retrieval and real-time interactions, as well as allowed for real-time updates on transactions, orders, and inventory.
- Cloud migration and infrastructure optimization. Transition from on-premise servers to AWS enabled auto-scaling and reduced infrastructure costs. Serverless functions for lightweight API execution improved response times. Meanwhile, the implemented CI/CD pipelines ensured seamless deployments and continuous updates.
- Real-time order and POS integration. The implementation of real-time synchronization between POS systems and backend services ensured instant inventory updates, while the integration of contactless payment methods supported faster checkout experiences.
- Security and compliance enhancement. We leveraged OAuth2 authentication and role-based access control (RBAC), integrated fraud detection tools with AI-powered anomaly detection, and ensured end-to-end encryption for all payment transactions.
- Continuous monitoring and optimization. Monitoring tools were integrated for real-time performance tracking, and automated alerts were set up to notify users of transaction failures, server load, and security vulnerabilities. Additionally, our team provided ongoing support and post-launch optimizations to ensure the long-term stability of the product.
Before / After
Before: inefficient monolithic architecture, limited scalability, lack of modern features, performance faults, and security vulnerabilities.
After: a competitive, scalable, and secure fintech product, employing an intuitive, handy user experience and an up-to-date tech stack to bring our client more satisfied and loyal users.
Outcomes & Business Value
A year of close collaboration and comprehensive legacy modernization yielded a cutting-edge retail and payment solution. Among the outcomes our client witnessed, we could mention:
- Higher customer satisfaction is achieved through the new scalable backend, which processes transactions in real-time
- Infrastructure costs reduced by 35%, while optimized APIs improved system performance by 40% due to the migration to AWS
- The company gained the ability to scale effortlessly with a microservices architecture and cloud hosting
- Merchants benefit from a fast and user-friendly interface with seamless interactions across mobile, tablet, and POS devices.
- Customers can use contactless payment solutions and digital wallets, making the checkout process more convenient
- The new security framework significantly contributed to helping the customer achieve PCI DSS compliance, facilitating fraud detection, and enabling real-time risk monitoring, thereby ensuring the safety of transactions.
- The modernized platform is ready for further evolution, aligned with the business processes and company growth
Check more about the project in the detailed case study of the MerchantPay insurance platform modernization.
Bottom Line
The five legacy modernization examples presented in this article demonstrate how it unlocks new opportunities, expanding the horizons for business growth and evolution through enhanced customer experience, improved performance, alignment with actual user needs, increased security, and flexibility in scaling to stay on a competitive edge.
If your business is struggling with the issues and challenges of legacy software that needs modernization, contact the Artkai team. Let’s choose the best strategy that fits your business objectives and customer needs.
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