This article was authored by Simon Kidner - Senior Solution Architect, and Stephen Aspland - Senior Consultant.
A successful migration isn’t just about moving data; it’s about transforming it and your business. Having led and seen dozens of migrations, here are the lessons that matter most before making the leap, informed by some of Lenvi’s recent migration projects.
Why migrations really matter
Every lender’s business is unique. Products vary, data volumes can be massive, and old systems are rarely a neat fit with new platforms.
A lending migration means data creation, manipulation, and manufacturing; mapping it into new formats, reconciling edge cases, and ensuring your business processes still deliver on the customer promise.
The technical and operational implications touch everything from customer communications to reporting and regulatory compliance.
Lesson 1: Data transformation is far more complex than data transfer
As we’ve already highlighted above, a common pitfall is thinking of migration as a technical “lift and shift.” In reality, successful migrations are about transforming data.
In one migration, we found that customer name fields in the source system were sometimes too long for our system’s database. Expanding the database field wasn’t feasible, so we stored longer names in a configurable attribute. A database view was then used to retrieve names - checking the attribute first and defaulting to the main field if the name was below a certain length.
This solution kept communications accurate while minimising configuration changes and development costs.
Pro-tip:
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Code and queries should be designed to support business logic, not just direct field mapping.
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Decisions made here influence how customers experience the system from day one.
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Finding and resolving legacy quirks early will help avoid disruption later.
Lesson 2: Expect edge cases - and expect them to take time
Legacy data rarely arrives in perfect condition. Among thousands of records, some systematic issues or rare anomalies almost always emerge.
Migration teams spend much of their time cleaning, validating, and sifting through (for want of a better word) “rubbish” data. If the migration team is closely involved throughout, these problems are usually discovered and resolved more quickly.
Pro-tip:
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Get the most recent production data early and often – clean test data is rare.
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Allow time and resource for manual review and remediation, as some edge cases require careful hands-on attention.
Lesson 3: Who owns the work matters
While working with external partners can appeal from a cost perspective, in practice, when the platform provider’s migration team with deep database and system knowledge (that’s us, by the way!) owns the mapping, transformation, and validation, it is faster and more effective.
Recommendation:
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Whenever feasible, let the provider’s migration team take the lead, taking advantage of their deep familiarity with the systems involved.
Lesson 4: New system configuration drives the migration approach
A big challenge is that migrated data must fit the way the new system is configured for your need - which itself may still be evolving.
Sometimes, what accounts “should” look like is a moving target. Early engagement among migration, engineering, and product teams helps align system rules and data relationships, ensuring business processes remain intact.
Best practice:
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Alignment between data reality and product configuration is essential for a smooth go-live.
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Don’t view migration as a stand-alone step in the process, the sooner the migration team get to know your business – the better. At Lenvi, our migration specialists are engaged early on in the process to be able to advice on configuration.
Lesson 5: Test what will actually happen after go-live
Testing the system in conditions that mirror actual business operations helps uncover practical issues before they surface in production. Activities that users, operations teams, and customers will carry out from launch day onwards deserve dedicated testing.
Pro-tip:
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Always test post-migration “day one” activities as a first-class component of your migration testing. Involve the same people who will maintain and use the system from go-live.
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Form a cross-functional test team to validate real workflows, moving beyond scripts to day-to-day processes.
Lesson 6: Resource and timing realities
Migration takes real time and focused effort. Whenever client-side staff are expected to do migration work in parallel to their day jobs, both can suffer. Upfront planning, full-time resource allocation, and clear internal priorities can make all the difference.
Pro-tip:
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Free up client resources for migration.
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Acknowledge that robust migration typically takes longer and requires more preparation than it may first seem!
Lesson 7: Secure data handling and environment sign-off
Security sign-off delays can block migration readiness. Steps such as penetration testing, secure data transfer (SFTP, password protection), and GDPR compliance checks sometimes take longer than expected.
Pro-tip:
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Build in security and production environment sign-offs early and keep stakeholders aware of dependencies that may not be technical but can stall the project.
Final thoughts
Successful migrations are shaped by strong technical ownership, and close engagement with source data and the operational realities of both systems.
Developing collaborative relationships, focusing on meaningful testing, and prioritising data quality and process-fit help avoid familiar migration pitfalls.
If migrations sound daunting, that’s because they are complex. But with the right experience, ownership, and preparation, the chances of a fast, reliable migration can improve dramatically - delivering the performance and compliance your business needs.
Migrate with confidence
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