Last Updated on September 27, 2023 by Ossian Muscad
Complex application environments accumulate in the long run. A vast climate results from transformation activities, mergers, acquisitions, and organizational restructuring, which also includes software or applications that are no longer used. The data is present, but it is dispersed across the organization.
By giving you insights into your whole application environment in a single central repository, application portfolio management (APM) helps you regain control. Read on and learn more about Application Portfolio Management (APM).
What is Application Portfolio Management (APM)?
Application Portfolio Management is a business procedure that provides an organized strategy to manage all technological assets. It includes everything from a list of all those assets and how they relate to business capabilities through the active management of an application’s lifecycle from conception to retirement and replacement. APM facilitates better decision-making, aids in understanding and managing the total cost of ownership, and drives the organization’s long-term investment decisions.
There are three important phases in the APM process:
- Discovery: Identify every application your business uses. This includes applications from various departments, business units, and software providers.
- Assessment: Once you’ve documented all of your applications, it’s time to evaluate them based on factors like risk, priority, and maturity level.
- Implementation: Implementation will occur after you evaluate each app according to a set of criteria. You can have a variety of implementation alternatives, including re-engineering and app retirement.
What are the Processes in an Application Management Portfolio?
Application portfolio management can make it easier for an organization to organize and maintain its application portfolio. However, the steps necessary to set up a successful APM system are not always as straightforward. Here, we take a closer look at every action organizations must take to succeed with APM.
Create an Application Inventory
The first stage in APM is the indexing of an organization’s software in use. Talk with service providers from each department and make a list of every active app that may still be covered by active subscriptions but unused. Businesses can also gather other relevant information immediately about each app, such as specifics about contracts and expenses, to help with more thorough application evaluations.
Determine Business Owners
Organizations must inventory all current applications and match each with its potential business owner. These owners should be made aware of the APM procedure and what the objectives of improved APM entail since they will be the ones using the app. For a more streamlined app strategy, enterprises can combine the onboarding and auditing of app data by implementing data certification procedures.
Outline App Lifecycles
Every application is bound to undergo a functional life cycle as it moves from active use to partial use, gradually phased out, and then to inactivity. When an application is no longer helpful to the business, it must be retired or replaced with an updated version. Identifying where each application fits inside these stages will be simpler after the app lifecycle has been outlined.
Analyze the Application’s Use
There will be a large variation of value even across already running programs. It will be simpler to give value if it is known how often these programs are utilized and how employed applications are to teams and workflows.
Determine the Application’s Commercial Worth
Organizations must next calculate the entire costs and economic value of each active piece of software. A standard against which businesses can assess other prospective solutions is provided by figuring out the overall cost associated with ownership and the value of each application in relation to business capabilities.
Maintain and Monitor the Process
Implementing a data-driven application indicator architecture is the final step in the APM process. Managers can then regularly review and uphold the application portfolio, creating long-term value and keeping IT entirely in line with business goals.
Benefits of Implementing an Application Portfolio Management
Applications manage business operations and should be risk-free, cost-effective, and in line with business goals. An effective APM in a dynamic business context involves ongoing evaluation, prioritization, and cleaning, all in cooperation with participating stakeholders, which results in:
- Application visibility and control. APM enables businesses to inventory their software applications, taking into account aspects like application lifespan, cost, implementations, and the business functions they provide. The evaluation of what-if scenarios also makes it possible to rationalize application usage.
- Cost Rationalization. APM classifies and rates applications according to their total cost of ownership and other important considerations. This gives decision-makers a clear picture of the actual worth of each application, enabling them to make wise decisions and get the most out of every allocated IT investment.
- Agility and cost reduction. By linking to external libraries that include details about various technologies’ lifecycles, including their end-of-life dates, APM tools can help identify obsolete technology. Users can view dashboards that show these end-of-life technologies’ effects on their apps using this information.
- Minimizing security risks and compliance. IT portfolios, whether distributed-maintained or plugged into supplier database servers, can be used to anticipate compliance difficulties with end-of-life app service lifecycles. It is also possible to keep track of all programs dealing with client data and use time-sensitive software licenses to enhance audit management.
What are the Best Practices in Application Portfolio Management?
A well-implemented APM can serve as a solid basis for business transformation that guides wiser investments, increasing their effects and encouraging continuous innovation. Here are a few best practices to follow so that organizations can maximize the potential benefits of APM methods:
Understanding Internal Users
APM serves to help decision-makers and other stakeholders select the apps that will be most beneficial to the organization. It can aid in lining up business capabilities with company strategy by understanding the requirements of the current users and the applications they require to complete their tasks.
APM must collaborate effectively with top managers, developers, app designers, and other members of the technology planning team to give them the tools they need to accomplish their tasks, support the company’s strategy, and respond to their inquiries.
Educate Data Providers
APM requires a multi-team effort to collect and maintain data. It will be necessary for data providers from different teams and departments to consistently supply data outside of their formally assigned roles.
Recognize Success
Success in APM does not always require a total app portfolio revolution. Success instead frequently happens iteratively.
Get Started with Application Portfolio Management Using a Low-Code Platform
Organizations would like dependable APM technologies to manage expanding app portfolios while protecting their financial investments efficiently. But with the trend of transitioning to a favored deployment methodologies provided by the cloud. You need a platform that can do both for you. That’s where DATAMYTE digital solutions come in.
DATAMYTE is a cloud-native low-code platform that provides solutions for handling your application portfolio that is tightly connected with the enterprise architecture of the organization and the accomplishment of its long-term strategic objectives. The DataMyte Digital Clipboard is a low-code automation software with the following features.
- Application Inventory and Cataloging: By establishing a centralized repository, index existing and unused applications. This catalog details the function, technological stack, dependencies, lifecycle, and economic worth of applications.
- Evaluation and Prioritization: Each application in the portfolio is evaluated for value and overall health as part of APM. Analyze application performance, usage, and alignment with corporate goals using built-in analytics and real-time monitoring tools. These features can also rank applications for optimization, retirement, or upgrade.
- Rapid Prototyping and Proof of Concept: Facilitate rapid application development with visual modeling and the ease of drag-and-drop interface. Before committing to a large-scale development project, APM teams can quickly prototype new ideas or concepts, enabling stakeholders to see possible improvements or innovations.
- Application Lifecycle Management: Our platform has built-in features for version control, deployment, and monitoring. The application lifetime can be guided with greater efficiency, effectively managing updates and changes.
- Expanding Ecosystems through Integration: Evaluation of an application’s interoperability with other apps and external systems is standard in APM. Pre-built connectors and APIs make integration activities easier, enabling seamless data and functionality transfer between apps.
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Conclusion
Application portfolio management helps organizations reduce costs by clearly understanding the applications in their environment and eliminating those that don’t fit with the company’s business approach.
