Gartner defines the digital accessibility market as the set of vendors that provide platforms with tools and professional services designed to ensure digital products and content are compatible with assistive technology for people with disabilities. Digital accessibility platforms are primarily cloud-based SaaS offerings.
The core objective of a digital accessibility platform is to make digital products and content more inclusive, ensuring that people with disabilities have equal access to digital content. By leveraging such platforms, organizations can not only avoid legal, financial and brand risks, but also reach a wider audience, improve user satisfaction and demonstrate a commitment to social responsibility.

Digital Accessibility

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Is digital accessibility difficult to achieve?

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Socioeconomic factors definitely carry a greater weight in agritech. We're finding that while there are some common challenges across different geographies, there are some unique ones as well. One of the pieces of feedback we get from some developing nations is that digital commerce is just not how business is done in these areas. It's a cash-based system, so in order for transactions to happen, people have to walk in with bags of cash to conduct business. That has some fluidity, which is nice, but it can inhibit the producer’s ability to connect to a digital marketplace. 

One of the ideas that we are engaged in is cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency can allow these farmers to have an account, which is their e-wallet in this case, and that provides a means for digital transactions. The ease of use and accessibility of e-wallets is still being improved, but it's getting very close to being simplified. There might be a long tail to make that accessible to all of the farmers, but it's good enough. Maturity is also on its way but in the meantime, the idea of an agripreneur is a fascinating concept that's ready today. In the agripreneur business model, an entrepreneur works to represent the farmer in agritech initiatives. It's one of the ways in which agritech is becoming accessible to developing nations. Technology can have a valuable and positive socioeconomic impact on those areas.

Socioeconomic factors definitely carry a greater weight in agritech. We&#39;re finding that while there are some common challenges across different geographies, there are some unique ones as well. One of the pieces of feedback we get from some developing nations is that digital commerce is just not how business is done in these areas. It&#39;s a cash-based system, so in order for transactions to happen, people have to walk in with bags of cash to conduct business. That has some fluidity, which is nice, but it can inhibit the producer’s ability to connect to a digital marketplace. 

One of the ideas that we are engaged in is cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency can allow these farmers to have an account, which is their e-wallet in this case, and that provides a means for digital transactions. The ease of use and accessibility of e-wallets is still being improved, but it&#39;s getting very close to being simplified. There might be a long tail to make that accessible to all of the farmers, but it&#39;s good enough. Maturity is also on its way but in the meantime, the idea of an agripreneur is a fascinating concept that&#39;s ready today. In the agripreneur business model, an entrepreneur works to represent the farmer in agritech initiatives. It&#39;s one of the ways in which agritech is becoming accessible to developing nations. Technology can have a valuable and positive socioeconomic impact on those areas.


Compared to other tech industries, do socioeconomic factors have a greater impact in agritech?

Agree with Isaac. Most organizations can't pivot on a dime so legacy doesn't go away overnight just because you want to transform to digital. Instead your strategy becomes digital first and therefore if/until you can move legacy to digital or decommission it, legacy will be around for a while.

Digital transformation typically involves a change in thinking, processes/methods/tools, with the encouragement of innovation and new business models, incorporating digitization of assets, leading to newer workflows/metrics and an increased use of technology to improve the experience of your organisation’s employees, customers, suppliers, partners and stakeholders. This may lead to newer AI/ML engines being leveraged, or newer algorithmic systems occurring which may still have legacy systems, but likely has newer Operational agility incorporated. As such non-strategic, inefficient legacy systems slowly will get transformed...

No. 'Legacy' never goes away and supports the baseline of revenue for most companies. Over time, what was updated to current technology becomes legacy. Digital transformation will evolve to the next item considered legacy eventually as it matures.

More than legacy, we are living in digital world today, if one needs to be competitive in the market digital transformation is very critical for every organization. Client is always looking for quick turn- around and that is possible with going digitization. In summary, yes we have to get rid of legacy to improve productivity and efficiency.

Digital transformation means getting rid of inefficiencies, it means enhancing customers experience, improving productivity. Digital transformation spans across processes, people and the way of working; wherein technology can act as an enabler. Like Robotic Process Automation can eliminate routine manual operations minimizing errors and inefficiencies, AI/ML can lead to magical customer insights enabling relevant customer experience. So I think, Digital Transformation may not be necessarily about getting rid of legacy, but it is surely about breaking the mindset of teams and organizations that subscribe to the philosophy of – “We always did it this way”.

I think digital transformation entails a few things. In my interactions with various CXOs across different enterprises, here are a few asks from digital transformation: 1. Optimizing on the systems in the organization. This includes Master Data Management, unifying systems that do the same thing (like manage inventory or product catalog) across channels etc. 2. Improving process efficiency - This might include improved work flows, RPA and the like. 3. Being Agile - Improving the process to deliver functionality and to identify and prioritize features etc. 4. Autonomous groups - Setting up groups within the organization that specialize on parts of the business. (in short sketching the business context of the organization) 5. Brand Identity - (closely aligned to point (1) above) Unifying the brand across channels and providing a consistent experience to the customer across channels 6. Moving data to digital - this usually morphs with (1) above since most organizations have some sort of digital system already in place. 7. SOA, Micro Services, Enterprise Messaging, Enterprise Bus etc. - Again this can morph into (1) since what we are in essence doing is to identify and unify the systems that do the same thing and expose these systems as services. As we can see point 1 above is very important and is an integral part of digital transformation. This might mean that you might have to get rid of legacy if the legacy system has severe limitations in scalability, flexibility etc. But by thinking of this as a legacy replacement exercise you might be missing the bus (no pun intended). Most of the work I do on digital transformations focuses on point 1 above in some form or the other. (be it identifying these at the level of business or at the level of technology)

Digital transformation is completely change the way consumers experience services and products. Artificial intelligence, Augmented reality have brought a drastic change. It is changing legacy systems in a fast way. Legacy systems will slowly give way to new age digital transformation

A Digital Transformation should really be termed a Business Transformation utilizing digital technology initiatives. You may have legacy systems/products/services that are key to your business that need to adopt digital technology methods for accessibility/utilization/service delivery. The question of keeping legacy rather depends on if they are key to your business and how.

Digital transformation should be more focused on the digitization of the enterprise, which typically results in gains in efficiency (less labor per input) and effectiveness (higher quality per output). Moving away from legacy systems typically lower structural cost while increasing agility and elasticity. I would argue we should seek to retire legacy technology debt wherever possible, but would not necessarily equate that to a requirement for digital transformation. That may create artificial barriers to digital transformation.

Short answer is “probably not”. Well not right away anyway. Core pain in getting rid of legacy is migrating and converting data. So once that’s planned and executed combined with digital transformation will help achieving that.

Digital Transformation is not an “IT thing”. It is the change on business models and IT is embedded on it. Legacy will be replaced in a faster way, but it is a natural process that occurs anyway. It is not about getting rid of the old stuff but being capable to be flexible and evolve in an agile fashion.

Any business seeks differentiation to gain competitive advantages.
The ethos of digital transformation is the relentless pursue of how to do things differently towards greater value to customers and employees.
The handling of legacy (retirement, upgrade, integrate) should be considered from such a holistic perspective.

Don’t treat the Digital a fancy any more but is the rudimentary necessity of the ecosystem.

In legacy systems also technology was not really bad but the transformation to new slant; earlier from manual to computerisation and now from legacy based system to digitalisation gives the organisation an opportunities for the advancement of their process. In case the organisations do not set an advantage moving to digital like adding new values and impacts to customers experience or employee productivity, there is no point to be Digital. So it’s important for Digital to bring the change and get out of the legacy. In short you shouldn’t run legacy and digital together, transform completely.

Digital transformation does not necessarily removes all the legacy processes, In fact every digital system is designed to cater the most basic functionalities as well as advance Technics of the legacy system. Legacy systems are considered to be non-flexible, rigid and are not scalable but in certain niche sectors systems stemed from legacy can not be discarded and digital transformation would cover a legacy system as an integral part of transformation through advance automation techniques.

Digital transformation brings in radical changes to the legacy systems, processes, technology and skill set. 

New sensors and edge computing enable capturing & processing of critical data. 

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) enable intelligent automation.

Advanced analytics predict / prescribe mission critical actions, mobile apps and social media enable decision making anywhere anytime.

Micro-services architecture and No-SQL databases break monolithic applications. 

Distributed Ledger Technology enable re-engineering of complex business processes.

As the new technological advancements emerge and mature in near future, the legacy will disappear.

Digital Transformation is a continuous journey that enables your infrastructure to simplify the user experience by using latest technology - at every point of your journey you will always have something labeled legacy.

Digital transformation does not mean removing the legacy. In fact, it will help to improve the legacy. The legacy system and process will not go away, but will continue to exist. The question will always be how you build new and improve the old.

Digital Transformation is an inevitable evolution of the way we operate, conduct our businesses, and provide services to our customers. It is inherent in society just as natural selection is - we evolve to cope with our environment, just as digital transformation should be with our legacy systems. In this perspective, transformation doesn't always equate to the elimination of legacy systems, but rather the evolution or modification of them to cope with the ever changing environments around them. In some cases this modification may be so extreme that the base root of the legacy system is all that remains, seems completely altered and so therefore assumed eliminated. However, if a legacy system is eliminated completely in the approach to digital transformation, then there is a possibility that said system was never the correct choice for the company/business in the first place.

Step one of digital transformation is to take out the trash and clean up the technical debt. That leads to some interesting philosophical discussions with the board with the CEO and CFO, typically saying ‘what’s wrong with my computer? It boots up every day!’.


The very fact that your computer boots up doesn’t mean a Chinese hacker running the latest and greatest technology has not already penetrated your system. So we have to make executives aware that continual investment in technology is the price one pays for being digital in 2019.

Not entirely. You require at least to have a legacy in which you can rely on, in case digital stop working for any on the reasons it might happen. 

Obviously, legacy’s costs might stop from doing that. So, keep a minimum legacy baseline that won’t affect deeply your budget.

Getting rid of legacy is a byproduct of digital transformation, not the goal.

The question of whether to replace legacy is more of a question of how much does legacy align with your Digital Transformation goals and operating model. Where legacy has the data and/or business logic you need but not the interconnectivity, consider upgrading the legacy system to use modern tools for managing the integration. This can help you meet your transformation goals faster and allows for legacy systems to be replaced based on a separate business case.

Yes I believe so, due to the advance in technology legacy is quite outdated and not as efficient as modern day technology to execute the required work load in the digital world.

Plenty of great comments 👍 For me, it's less about legacy or not, I think the answer flows from the following definition:

"Digital Transformation – is a profound transformation of business and organizational activities, processes, competencies and models to fully leverage the changes and opportunities of a mix of digital technologies and their accelerating impact in a strategic and prioritized way."

(credit to i-SCOOP, well put)

Absolutely not. There is a lot of value in legacy. Whether it is the historical data that can be used in trend analysis, processes optimized over the years, or teams understanding of the existing context, there is value that the organization should not lose in the name of digitization.
The optimum outcome will come by doing additional analytics using modern tools, implementing optimized processes using new paradigms, and using the understanding of the current context to find gaps and ways to fill them as a part of Digital Transformation.

Fusion is the way to go. Digital transformation is necessary to be ready for the future. Meanwhile, legacy is a identifier. Fusion of digital transformation with a retro legacy touch can work as absolute differentiator.

Digital transformation does not necessarily mean getting rid of legacy systems. It can mean transitioning from paper-based or manual processes to digital processes. It can also mean upgrading legacy systems to take advantage of new technologies.

Does Digital Transformation mean getting rid of legacy?

Getting rid of legacy is a byproduct of digital transformation,  not the goal.

Does Digital Transformation mean getting rid of legacy?

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