The statement, “This application is essential to meet my objectives for the coming year,” has been prevalent in leadership meetings for 25+ years. Those words create the intricate application “spaghetti diagrams” that make IT professionals cringe, and the eyes of business leaders glaze over. They often lead to blank stares and evoke unspoken anxiety among leaders about their application infrastructure—the usual outcome of the discussion is , a quick transition to the next agenda item.
By streamlining applications, you can build a solid foundation for digital transformation. This ensures you can leverage current software assets while encouraging innovation, efficiency, and growth in new acquisitions.
The application rationalization (AR) process determines your application infrastructure's inventory and usage. A detailed review:
Identifies redundant or underutilized applications that can streamline the software portfolio, eliminate unnecessary licenses, and reduce maintenance, leading to substantial savings.
Streamlines the application portfolio, reduces complexity and improves operational efficiency.
Transforms the IT infrastructure to a more manageable and easier-to-support function.
Improves overall security with fewer applications, which means a smaller attack surface, enhancing the organization's security posture.
Understanding which critical functions enables a simplified disaster recovery/ business continuity plan and focuses resources on maintaining and improving essential applications.
Rationalization is a steppingstone toward digital transformation, ensuring the technology ecosystem is recent, efficient, and aligned with business goals.
Reducing the number of applications results in more consistent and user-friendly experience for employees and customers. They have fewer systems to learn and navigate.
Supports improved decision-making by clearly understanding current performance by consolidating company transactions in fewer areas for reporting.
One last thought: application rationalization is vital in keeping your IT ecosystem lean, efficient, and budget-friendly. Pinpointing redundant or underused applications helps cut costs, improves operational efficiency by creating a more streamlined application environment, and supports intelligent decision-making with a clear overview of the current setup. Ultimately, application rationalization is key to achieving a lean, quickly supported IT infrastructure that aligns with your overall business objectives. AR may not eliminate the application “spaghetti diagram” but it will undoubtedly make it easier to understand and enable a discussion about your application ecosystem.
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