JUL 21, 2026|Efficiency

Which software stays when a platform is added

Every platform project starts with a decision about the existing software: connect or replace. That decision weighs more than the code that follows.

Jerom Verschoote

Nobody starts with a blank sheet. There is an accounting package running, a calendar, an industry package with years of data in it. In the first phase of every project I decide together with the client, package by package, what happens with it: connect, or replace. It is the phase that produces the least code and determines the most.

Keeping is an investment

A package that stays gets connected. An integration has to be built and maintained, and it ties the package more firmly into the operation. What is kept today is still there in five years, with everything that hangs on it by then. Keeping is therefore a decision with a price, not a postponement of a decision.

Peripheral packages stay

Accounting, calendar and email each carry one delimited process and do it conclusively. Rebuilding them brings in complexity without gain. Those packages stay and get connected.

Core packages are weighed

A package that touches the daily work of the team stays only if it passes three questions.

Does it support the way of working completely, without lists or spreadsheets beside it?
Does the team like working with it, so that the data in it is kept up to date?
Would you choose it again today, knowing what you know now?

Three times yes, and the package earns its integration. One no, and the integration anchors a problem.

When to replace

Two kinds of packages fail in practice. The cumbersome package is avoided: people find a detour, and the data in it ages. The limited package cannot handle part of the work, and that part moves to spreadsheets. In both cases the organisation pays for an integration to a package that does not carry the work.

The argument most often raised against replacing is habit. That the team knows the package is true, and it is no reason to anchor a detour. Replacing does not have to happen in one go: a package is replaced phase by phase while the rest keeps running.

The decision costs one conversation, per package. It determines how the team works every day in the years to come, and it is taken today.

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Keeping is an investment

Core packages are weighed

A package that touches the daily work of the team stays only if it passes three questions.

Does it support the way of working completely, without lists or spreadsheets beside it?

Does the team like working with it, so that the data in it is kept up to date?

Would you choose it again today, knowing what you know now?

Three times yes, and the package earns its integration. One no, and the integration anchors a problem.

When to replace

The decision costs one conversation, per package. It determines how the team works every day in the years to come, and it is taken today.