Legacy Footsteps, Future Stakes
What happens when decades of growth create a collage of products but slow the pace of innovation?
The client is the second-largest software provider in the UK, delivering enterprise solutions across healthcare, legal, education, financial services, and people management. Its platforms are used by critical institutions such as the NHS and UK ambulance services, making the client a trusted household name.
Aggressive M&A expanded its portfolio to 70+ products. But growth brought fragmentation, legacy systems, and under-leveraged R&D talent. To stay ahead of emerging competitors, the client launched a multi-phase transformation anchored in platformisation, SaaSification, and AI-powered productivity.
The Bottlenecks Behind the Brand
The cracks in the model soon became impossible to ignore.
Despite strong market presence, the client was constrained by:
- Low R&D Productivity – Teams consumed by repetitive tasks like backlog grooming.
- Siloed Engineering – Limited consistency and reuse across geographies.
- Integration Complexity – Acquisitions added redundant platforms and tech debt.
- Technology and Security Debt – Legacy infrastructure and lack of automation increased risk.
- Inefficient Knowledge Management – Scattered documentation slowed onboarding.
- High Cost with Low ROI – Heavy engineering spend without matching innovation.
- Competitive Pressure – Rivals releasing superior solutions at speed.
“There was an existential crisis… Competitors were building better products. To survive, we had to move faster, reduce costs, and modernize its platform.” — Client Stakeholder
Our Approach
Instead of adding more engineers, the client needed a way to amplify every engineer they already had. Persistent reimagined the program as an AI-led shift from capacity to capability, with SASVA at the core:
- Modern Delivery Framework – Transition from siloed product lines to platform-led delivery using Persistent’s “Services as a Software” model.
- Generative AI-Augmented Workflows – Developers enabled with SASVA Release Manager for assisted code creation.
- AI-Based Team Structuring – Analysis of 500+ engineers to build high-performing squads.
- Platformisation Across Verticals – Reusable engineering platforms to reduce duplication.
- Layered Governance and Quality – Governance models to enforce reuse, consistency, and GTM alignment.
Persistent reimagined the program as an AI-led shift from capacity to capability, with SASVA at the core.
How It Works
So how does an AI-first delivery model actually take shape?
SASVA powered the transformation through three key components:
- Release Manager – Assisted code creation, freeing time for resiliency and architecture.
- Productivity Intelligence Engine – Developer scoring and team optimization using velocity and defect data.
- SaaSification Accelerator – Transition of legacy products into scalable SaaS platforms.
Business Impact
The results were measurable across productivity, cost, and revenue.
- 20–30% YoY Productivity Gains – Faster backlog burn-down and engineering throughput.
- Faster Go-to-Market Cycles – Commercial teams operate with release visibility, unlocking pipeline.
- Revenue Unlock – ARR gains from accelerated R&D and SaaS migrations.
- Reduced Reliance on Tribal Knowledge – Domain knowledge codified for continuity.
- Cost-to-Value Optimization – High-output, AI-augmented teams over headcount expansion.
Extending the Impact
The momentum didn’t stop in engineering. Once the GenAI foundation was proven, other domains were quick to follow.
The GenAI foundation is scaling beyond engineering:
- Legal Tech – Automating contract lifecycle and compliance workflows.
- People Tech – Redesigning time-and-attendance tools for multiple industries.
- Innovation Pods – Deploying “GenAI pods” to deliver new capabilities on demand.
Each use case builds on reusable microservices and configurable prompts, enabling rapid expansion at low cost.
Why Persistent
Why did the client trust Persistent to drive such a critical transformation? Because the partnership went beyond staffing into reinvention.
The original engagement model was transactional—build a BOT team and transfer it later. Persistent reframed it with a transformational lens:
- From staffing to platform-powered reinvention
- From delivery support to GenAI-driven modernization
- From short-term resourcing to long-term value creation
Conclusion
This transformation marks a pivotal shift in how enterprise software can be built, scaled, and sustained in the GenAI era. By embedding SASVA at the heart of R&D and aligning delivery with governance and reuse, the client moved beyond incremental improvements to achieve a step-change in productivity, agility, and innovation velocity.
What began as an operational upgrade evolved into a strategic reinvention—reducing costs, unlocking new revenue streams, and future-proofing the portfolio. With GenAI integrated across the lifecycle, the client is not just keeping pace with the market—it is defining the future.
Persistent’s partnership demonstrates that with the right AI platform, even the most complex legacy environments can be reimagined into agile, high-performing innovation engines.
Ready to Reimagine Your Product Factory?
Ship faster, smarter, safer. Turn every sprint into a revenue sprint. Talk with Persistent—let’s engineer your SASVA edge.
