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The Australian Department of Defence (DoD) operates in an increasingly complex and dynamic environment where agility and efficiency are paramount. For decades, though, the DoD has relied on a patchwork of legacy IT systems to manage critical functions, from logistics and procurement to personnel management and intelligence. While these systems were fit for purpose at the time of adoption, many are now decades old and increasingly incompatible with modern technologies. This reliance has created ongoing inefficiencies across Defence operations, limiting data sharing and real-time decision-making.
The persistence of legacy systems has also led to spiralling maintenance costs and a growing skills gap, as the workforce trained to manage these platforms move on. Importantly, these outdated systems also hinder the DoD’s ability to respond with agility to emerging threats and to harness innovations such as AI, cloud computing, and advanced data analytics.
Moving beyond legacy systems at the DoD
Without a clear and urgent path toward modernisation, the DoD risked compromising the effectiveness of its operations. In response to the challenge presented by its aging and inefficient digital ecosystem, the Australian government recently released the 2024 Defence Digital Strategy and Roadmap. This document outlines Defence’s approach to delivering information and communications technologies in support of Australia’s national interest. In an announcement on the 2024 Defence Digital Strategy and Roadmap, the DoD said that:
“The Roadmap identifies ICT capabilities Defence will prioritise and address with urgency, including AI, hyperscalers and productivity platforms. The Government’s investments in enterprise data, digital platforms and networks will strengthen security, resilience and interoperability, and improve the ability to share data efficiently.”
The scale of the legacy systems challenge within the Australian Defence Force is so significant that DoD’s Digital Strategy and Roadmap mentions ‘retirement of legacy systems’ 17 times in just seven pages.
Updating and retiring legacy systems is no easy task for the DoD, particularly when so many are deeply embedded across mission-critical operations. Full-scale replacement can be disruptive and time-consuming. However, modernisation can be achieved without the need to entirely dismantle and rebuild systems from the ground up. With a unified process automation platform, the DoD could rapidly digitise and orchestrate workflows across functions without needing to replace every legacy system, which would enable faster, more efficient operations while gradually phasing out outdated infrastructure.
A model for modernisation: Lessons from the US Army
Automation can be used for myriad functions in defence settings, such as threat analysis, real-time mission planning to allocate resources, and predictive maintenance to identify equipment failures well ahead of schedule.
The US Army has provided a strong example of the power of automation in streamlining operations. It has taken a proactive approach to modernising its technology, recognising that outdated systems can have serious consequences beyond simple inefficiencies.
A key initiative driving this modernisation is the Global Force Information Management (GFIM) program. GFIM will replace 14 legacy systems with a standalone, automated cloud platform, providing a real-time, comprehensive view of critical Army data. With approximately 160,000 users, this system will streamline staffing, equipping, training, and resource allocation by eliminating manual data retrieval. Currently, force management decisions require the mining of 15 outdated systems – a time-consuming and error-prone process. The new AI-driven platform uses a data fabric to consolidate these systems into a single interface, delivering accurate, real-time data. This data fabric unifies data sources across the enterprise without the need to replicate or move data. Users can access consistent, accurate, and compliant data at any point in the process. The data fabric also updates data in all applicable systems automatically. This transformation enhances efficiency and improves decision-making, ensuring the Army is equipped for the challenges of tomorrow.
Why end-to-end automation is essential for a modern defence force
For Australia’s DoD to keep pace with modern threats and deliver on its operational mandate, it must move beyond piecemeal digital fixes and embrace end-to-end process automation. This means adopting technologies that can seamlessly integrate with existing systems while reducing manual workloads, enhancing data accuracy, and accelerating mission-critical decisions.
Defence operations are already complex enough, including managing procurement and logistics chains across vast geographies, to onboarding and mobilising personnel, to responding to cyber incidents with agility. These processes often span multiple disconnected systems, involve repetitive data entry, and require approvals from multiple stakeholders.
By adopting a unified process automation platform, the DoD can streamline cross-functional workflows to improve operational readiness and ensure compliance, while capturing process insights for continuous improvement. Embedding AI directly into these processes gives it purpose, governance, and accountability, ensuring it delivers real value and stays focused on achieving the mission. For example, when a cyber incident is reported, an AI agent could instantly trigger threat analysis, route the case to the appropriate unit, pre-populate incident response forms with relevant data, and provide leadership with a real-time dashboard for situational awareness. Similarly, automation could simplify defence procurement—reducing weeks of paperwork into streamlined, auditable digital workflows with embedded compliance checks. All of this is done in a secure manner, and speed that could not be achieved in a high-code environment.
Such platforms, like the Appian Platform, are already being used in allied defence agencies to unify data and streamline operations without the need for costly data migration. Data fabric
enables fast and secure access to information across systems, ensuring agencies can act with
speed and precision. At the same time, embedded process insights provide a continuous
feedback loop to identify inefficiencies and strengthen governance. For Australia, investing in AI and embedding it into processes and automation means more than operational efficiency, it’s about enabling a defence force that can respond faster, smarter and with greater resilience to whatever challenges lie ahead.
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