Application Portfolio Management: Perils Of Poor Data

Posted by Neil Sheppard on October 28, 2024
Application Portfolio Management: Perils Of Poor Data

Application portfolio management is impossible without accurate, up-to-date data. Discover how you can empower your efforts with a real-time view on your IT landscape. 

Application portfolio management is a vital part of business operations in a digital market. To ensure that your organization is supported by software that drives success, you should know what you have, what you need, and how applications are being leveraged.

This is vital for every aspect of your business from talent retention to cyber security. Half of workers would quit their jobs if their workplace tech wasn't sufficient, while 60% of data breaches are due to known vulnerabilities.

Yet, many companies have no idea what software applications are in use across their organization. This leaves their IT landscape filled with the terrors of 'zombie' applications and unmonitored innovative software-as-a-service (SaaS) tools like ChatGPT that could land you in hot water.

To tame your application portfolio, you need accurate data and oversight on what's going on in your IT landscape. That's why you need SAP LeanIX.

Don't just take our word for it. Learn what IDC discovered when we asked them to explore how SAP LeanIX empowers application rationalization and portfolio management:

IDC INFOBRIEF: Setting The Stage for Growth With Data-Driven Application Rationalization And Portfolio Management

 

What Is Application Portfolio Management?

Application portfolio management is the process of keeping oversight of the software that your organization uses in its daily operations. With this focus, organizations can ensure that they have best-of-breed tools and aren't spending more than they need to on their technology.

Perhaps you're still paying for an instance of Microsoft Skype that part of your organization is using for communication when the rest of the company is on Zoom? Maybe you purchased an innovative, artificial-intelligence-driven customer relationship management (CRM) tool, but no-one told your CRM team that they have access to it?

It's all too common for companies to find that they're paying for hundreds of unused licenses for software applications that aren't being leveraged by their people. Not to mention, clunky, outdated software can cripple your productivity and leave you open to cyber attack.

This can lead to a lack of productivity in your business and wasted spend, all at the same time. Yet, this isn't the worst consequence of a lack of application portfolio management.

If you don't have an understanding of how your complex IT landscape fits together and how each application depends upon the others, you could inadvertently cripple your operations by changing anything about your architecture. Without knowing what applications connect to each other, any initiative could cause your tech stack to fall down like a house of cards.

This is why application portfolio management has become vital for any modern organization. It's not yet common practice, however.

Only 15% of the respondents to our 2023 IT cost optimization survey said that they assess their application portfolio on a regular basis. Essentially, most organizations have a tech stack that's more like the Wild West than an organized and efficient machine, and the secret to moving from the former to the latter is data.

 

Wrong Data, Wrong Decisions

Application portfolio management is about making the correct choices about your IT architecture to optimize your operations. Yet, you can't make the right decisions about your applications unless you have the right intelligence.

Lack of management could mean investing heavily in software that isn't a good functional fit for your organization because inaccurate data suggests it will be beneficial. On the other hand, it might mean leaving your people without an essential tool that they need in order to complete their work as you haven't realized it was necessary.

To manage your application portfolio, you need to know:

  • what applications you have
  • who uses them
  • what they're used for
  • how much they cost
  • how your different applications and data connect across your landscape
  • what technology and IT components your applications rely on to function
  • what functions your organization needs to perform that aren't supported by digital tools
  • what applications are available that support the functions you need to complete
  • what the best-of-breed tools are for your industry
  • and much more

All of that information needs to be accurate and current for you to have a complete picture of your IT landscape and understand how to optimize it. Let alone, to be able to find where within it innovative technology can be leveraged.

 

Don't Forget Software Innovation

Application portfolio management is crucial for the adoption and governance of artificial intelligence (AI) tools. The same is true of any innovative technology, but AI is likely to be the focus of technology innovation for the foreseeable future.

AI, particularly, however, includes both stand-alone applications and also certain functions within applications that aren't specifically dedicated to AI. Understanding where AI functionality can be leveraged within your IT landscape and protecting your organization from its risks requires a complete oversight of your portfolio.

There are all manner of risks and concerns about the use of AI and governing those operations to avoid catastrophe is vital. We've previously covered some of the real cases of organizations that have run into problems due to uncontrolled AI use.

Since every application nowadays is adding AI to its capabilities, narrowing down where AI is in use for governance and regulatory reporting is becoming crucial. According to our 2024 AI survey. 90% of IT experts feel this oversight is vital to their continuing operations.

That's why SAP LeanIX allows you to map which of your applications have AI functionality and which depend on those functions. This is the oversight that you need to leverage AI with confidence.

 

SAP LeanIX For Application Portfolio Management

Application portfolio management should be common practice for any IT or enterprise architecture team, but it's still not being prioritized. To unlock this vital process in your organization, you need a tool that makes storing and updating this data manageable.

SAP LeanIX makes application portfolio management a simple process. With all your information stored in our repository and constantly updated by drawing information from a variety of sources, you no longer need to do this research manually.

With these key insights readily available at any time through shareable dashboards, visualizations, and reports, all you have to do is make the right decisions. You can even design your optimal state and build a road map to get there directly within the tool.

To find out more about how SAP LeanIX can support your application portfolio management efforts, book a demo: 

Request demo

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