Avoided Costly Internal Build Through Strategic Acquisition
Research question
Why do people love our legacy software?
Project Context
A global company was preparing to heavily invest in rebuilding their outdated legacy software. They believed the tool was widely loved and wanted to understand what users valued before making any changes.
Approach
Stakeholder interviews revealed a key tension: they believed the software was outdated and hard to learn, yet was also widely used.
Categorized users as heavy, light, or past, then conducted 1:1 interviews to explore their experiences and behaviors.
Surprising results came from the interviews requiring an analysis of the usage data.
Impact
Former users reported abandoning the tool for external reasons, not because of the tool's difficult design. Yet, every person interviewed commented on how the tool’s dated design made it difficult to use and they almost quit. This prompted an analysis of usage data, which showed only 7% of users were frequent, while over 50% used the tool once and never returned.
This shocking data dispelled the company wide belief that this software was popular and well loved. This work led the company to retire the software and acquire another company, which proved cheaper than updating the legacy system.