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From 20-Year Legacy Code to Cloud-Native:
How One FMCG Giant Transformed 16 COBOL Applications in 12 Months

Executive Summary

A leading FMCG company successfully migrated 16 legacy COBOL mainframe applications to modern cloud-native architecture, eliminating costly mainframe dependencies while enabling real-time processing for retail sales, inventory management, and supply chain operations.

The transformation leveraged Generative AI tools to accelerate development and reduce manual analysis effort.

Executive Summary

Client Overview

The client is a prominent FMCG organization managing complex retail operations, including sales processing, inventory reconciliation, stock
replenishment, and financial posting across multiple distribution channels and retail partners.


Their earlier tech stack included:

16

Legacy Applications

5TB

Data
Volume

20+

Year-Old
System

Executive Summary

A leading FMCG company successfully migrated 16 legacy COBOL mainframe applications to modern cloud-native architecture, eliminating costly mainframe dependencies while enabling real-time processing for retail sales, inventory management, and supply chain operations.

The transformation leveraged Generative AI tools to accelerate development and reduce manual analysis effort.

Executive Summary

Client Overview

The client is a prominent FMCG organization managing complex retail operations, including sales processing, inventory reconciliation, stock
replenishment, and financial posting across multiple distribution channels and retail partners.


Their earlier tech stack included:

16

Legacy Applications

5TB

Data
Volume

20+

Year-Old
System

The Business Challenge

The client’s 20+ year-old mainframe infrastructure was becoming increasingly costly and inflexible, hampering the company’s ability to compete in the FMCG market.

Legacy Infrastructure Constraints

Expensive COBOL-based mainframe systems with increasing Broadcom licensing costs were draining IT budgets while limiting development agility and making it difficult to attract modern development talent.

Integration Complexity

Integration Complexity

Daily financial operations, including bank reconciliation, invoice processing, and payment tracking, required 8 hours of manual work from finance staff, with a high risk of human error.

Operational Inefficiencies

Temperature-sensitive injections and medicines required refrigerated transport, but the company lacked systematic planning to ensure products were assigned to appropriate vehicles, leading to product spoilage and quality issues.

A5E’s Approach & Solution

A5E Consulting implemented a comprehensive modernization strategy combining cloud-native architecture with Generative AI acceleration, following proven methodologies for large-scale legacy transformations. The project was executed in a phased manner, encompassing:
The initial phase included detailed functional workshops with business stakeholders, complete system dependency mapping across all 16 applications, database schema analysis, and architecture design.
  • A comprehensive asset inventory was conducted using Amazon Q and Claude to analyze 5,000+ COBOL, PL/I, and JCL files per application.
  • The team conducted extensive SME interviews to capture undocumented business logic and created detailed migration roadmaps with risk assessments and rollback strategies.
This phase included extensive parallel testing, user training programs, and phased cutover execution with geographic rollout strategies.
  • Microservices were developed parallely using GitHub Copilot for code generation, implementing Java Spring Boot, Node.js, and Python services.
  • The data migration was executed using enterprise tools including AWS DMS and Qlik Replicate to move 5TB of data from DB2 to PostgreSQL.
  • The team completed a comprehensive CI/CD pipeline implementation with automated testing, quality gates, and deployment orchestration.

Key Solution Features

Technology Stack Transformation

Legacy Stack COBOL batch jobs, DB2 database, Sterling File Gateway, manual processes
Modern Backend Java Spring Boot, Node.js, Python microservices with AWS Lambda & ECS
Database Layer Amazon RDS (PostgresSQL/MySQL) replacing mainframe DB2
User Interface React dashboards replacing terminal-based CICS interfaces
API & Integration AWS API Gateway, EventBridge, Kafka for real-time processing
GenAI Tools Amazon Q, GitHub Copilot, Claude for development acceleration

Key Outcomes & Business Impact

This mainframe modernization demonstrates how strategic planning and Generative AI acceleration can transform 20+ year-old legacy systems with agile, cost-effective solutions. The 35% cost reduction and real-time processing capabilities positioned the client for sustained competitive advantage. By eliminating mainframe dependencies, the organization gained the agility needed to respond quickly to market changes while serving as a blueprint for other enterprises modernizing legacy systems.
Contact A5E Consulting today to simplify your manufacturing operations with proven SAP S/4HANA expertise.

About A5E Consulting

A5E is a global consulting company partnering with clients to chart, build and deliver their Digital Transformation journey. We execute a blend of expert process consulting services and top-tier technology platforms at organizations making them more agile.

Discover how A5E’s expertise in generative AI consulting can enhance your services. Contact us today!

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