# Next steps


Before you begin the process of modernizing your applications, perform a readiness assessment to determine whether your organization is prepared to begin the modernization journey. Create alignment between teams so they can adopt the new ways of working. Most companies have a large footprint of legacy applications that generate the most revenue and provide core business capabilities. The stickiness of the architecture, infrastructure, and technology of these legacy applications create complexity and speed bumps for modernization, and further limit the ability of teams to innovate and transform their applications. 

The approach to modernization should be incremental but continuous. By following this phased approach, you not only reduce technical debt but help your teams realize cloud benefits faster by scaling seamlessly with self-healing systems, maximize return on investment (ROI) by using cloud-native patterns, offload undifferentiated workloads and dependencies, and improve application performance. For more information about how you can change your operating model and align with a framework that starts with a detailed assessment of current applications, and then modernize those applications by using cloud-native services that can deploy, scale at speed, and manage with efficiency, see the modernization guides in the [Related guides](resources.md#guides) section.