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Present day context on enterprise application landscape
Traditional IT application stack has been diverse with complex rules and technology dependencies. With today’s new-age tech and skill availability, a wider range of opportunities are available for businesses to choose from. This would include buying a new-age and easy-to-use application, which is fit for business, borrow/subscribe to an application or build apps which are easy to develop, using low code technology to remove dependencies.
While this brings in convenience, it also has disadvantages, such as resilient infosec, coverage of AMS, support on any changes, enhancements, etc. What we choose is a balancing act between convenience and control, but this does indicate a case for change for the new age IT/application function.
The intent of this white paper is to provide views on how organisations can enhance ROI and/or unlock value from their existing IT investments. The paper attempts to provide the reader with a view on achieving the above stated objectives through:
Gartner estimates that organisations following good practices of application rationalisation can reduce total cost of ownership by 30%, leading to significant saving in IT budget.
Along with the new age technology, newer challenges have emerged. These challenges or blockers are impacting business, IT teams and, majorly, the talent, who’s services they require. These have led organisations to think on holistic aspects.
We have observed that businesses have started demanding for value more often than earlier. The application type and sophistication (functionality, workflows, interfacing, etc) has also increased. Simultaneously, organisations are also wanting to either hold steady or decrease IT costs.
Performing an application portfolio discovery, understanding the mapping against the business value chain and holistically examining the portfolio is key. These may include, but are not limited to, app rationalisation, infrastructure technology upgrade, global procurement of licenses, consolidation of AMS, unification of data and process simplification.
Focus on the above elements will aid in maximising value, minimise operating cost and effort for the overall organisation as well as the business units.
One of the critical factors for the success of this strategy is to create a culture of synergy, while handling conflicting business unit’s specific demands through joint solutioning.
Steps involved in application rationalisation are:
While the steps for rationalisation remain similar across methodologies; defining levers for rationalisation becomes a key enabler to change.
Today, it is imperative for businesses to ask more for delivering at lesser costs from enabling functions, such as information technology. Also, there is a need for a “Digital First” agenda that is on priority list for most CXOs across organisations and industries. Hence, organisations must consider that APM has a lever to optimise the IT cost and effort base. Top four actions that organisations can focus on are:
