Enterprises across the globe are sprinting to keep pace with the automation and digital transformation frenzy that is sweeping across the industries. From leveraging AI for making smart business decisions to using machine learning to enhance customer experiences, businesses are steadfast in their efforts to adapt, evolve and achieve the competitive edge they deserve.
Amidst all this tech excitement, one thing has been made clear for enterprises – the old school way of managing software applications just won’t cut it anymore. That’s where Application Portfolio Management (APM) comes into play as a much-needed solution for organizations that have a huge list of applications in their arsenal.
But is APM all about keeping track and taking care of applications in your portfolio? Well, not really. Application portfolio management when done right can help you extract maximum value out of your enterprise applications, weed out complexities and ensure that the entire suit of applications you leverage within your enterprise perfectly aligns with your business goals.
Want to know more about what application portfolio management is and the benefits your business can extract from it? You are at the right place. In this article, we have discussed
- What is application portfolio management?
- Why is it important for digital enterprises in 2024?
- And the tangible benefits your business can experience with application portfolio management?
Without much ado, let’s dive into the article.
What is Application Portfolio Management?
Application Portfolio Management (APM) is a comprehensive approach to managing your company’s software applications. Now, think of your application ecosystem as a well-maintained fleet of vehicles. Some of your vehicles will be sleek and efficient, some will be old and will require a lot of maintenance, while a few might even be standing idle in your yard. The role of APM here will be like that of a fleet manager who makes sure that each vehicle (application) is in the top shape, serving a purpose, and contributing to the overall growth of your business. The fleet manager decides which ones to keep running, which needs a makeover, and which should be taken off the road entirely.
Similarly, the process of Application Portfolio Management involves evaluating the applications in your digital ecosystem based of various factors like business value, cost risk, and alignment with your strategy. APM provides complete visibility into your digital assets, so that you can get valuable insights and make data-driven decisions about where to invest, optimize, or decommission.
Why is Application Portfolio Management Important for Digital Enterprises in 2024?
As we dive deeper into 2024, the digital landscape is getting modernized and evolving at a breakneck speed. This would require your business to navigate a maze of new technologies like AI, cloud, automation, and all the other promising technologies in future tech. But, with this comes the challenge – the ever-growing and increasingly complex application ecosystem. Modern enterprises with a huge inventory of assets need a proactive mechanism to track and evaluate the alignment of each application across departments.
For instance, consider your business as a city, with each application as a road or building. As your city grows, you need to carefully plan to avoid chaos and ensure everything serves its purpose. Application Portfolio management will act exactly like your city planner and make sure that each application adds value, removes redundancy, and aligns with your holistic business goals.
Without APM, your application landscape could become cluttered with outdated and redundant systems, wasting resources and slowing you down. That’s why it is super-critical to have APM in place so that you can make quick decisions in a snap, minimize costs, and stay agile in the competitive market.
What are the Tangible Benefits Businesses can Experience with Application Portfolio Management?
- Optimizes Costs
According to research around 3 in 5 percent of businesses find themselves buried under soaring IT expenses, with outdated enterprise applications eating away all their budgets. One of the key benefits of APM involves identifying which applications deliver value and which are simply draining resources. By optimizing your application portfolio, you can significantly reduce costs and redirect those savings towards your enterprise’s innovation & growth.
- Bolsters Security & Minimizes Risks
Oftentimes, your outdated or poorly managed applications are likely to open doors for hackers. And in times when cyber threats are constantly evolving, failing to pay attention to your functional, yet outdated business applications can pose a huge threat to your enterprise’s trust and reputation. With APM under the hood, you can continuously assess and fortify the security of your application.
APM, doesn’t only help with eliminating obsolete apps, but also helps with patching vulnerabilities and minimizing the risks and compliance-related issues associated with your legacy applications.
- Enhances Agility & Flexibility
Agility is everything in today’s fast paced environment. Your business should be able to quickly adapt to market changes on the go. To achieve that, your business needs to make a lot of effort to streamline your application updates and deployments. But, if your tech stack is cumbersome, you will not be able to adapt quickly to new opportunities.
With Application Portfolio Management process in place, you can ensure that your technology landscape is flexible and responsive enough to support your business to pivot as needed without any heavy burden or technical depth.
- Provides Full Process Visibility
Lack of clarity on your applications’ performance? Not having clear visibility into the applications in your technology portfolio can lead to inefficiencies and bottlenecks that will hamper growth and productivity. With APM, you will gain full process visibility that will allow you to monitor app performance, proactively spot issues and optimize your workflows for better operational efficiency.
- Offers Optimal Alignment with Business Goals
The applications in your technology stack should propel your business forward, not hold it back. Yet many organizations find their application stack completely misaligned with their strategic business objectives. With APM, you can ensure that every application is evaluated for its strategic fit and make sure your technology investments are totally aligned to your holistic business goals. It’s about making sure every tool in your arsenal serves a clear purpose!
- Streamlines User Experience
Outdated or poorly integrated applications are one of the main reasons for compromised business productivity and customer satisfaction. With a well-managed application portfolio process, you can easily overcome those challenges by enhancing the performance of your core applications. This will ensure that every interaction is seamless and intuitive for both your employees and customers.
- Drives Continuous Innovation
In the current times, staying still means falling behind. And that’s why businesses need to innovate continuously to stay relevant. Application portfolio management plays an important role in promoting continuous innovation within organizations. It provides insights into application performance, suggests areas for improvement, and reveals opportunities for new features based on user behavior analysis.
APM also clears up the path for innovation by reducing complexity and promoting a lean and efficient application environment. Now, your business can free up resources and make more room for meaningful experimentation with new and emerging technologies.
Wrapping Up!
As you progress and move forward in building new solutions, your application landscape should be an enabler, and not a roadblock. That’s why it’s crucial for organizations to invest in setting up an Application Portfolio Management process for monitoring and optimizing their application portfolio. APM is not just about overcoming redundancies, reducing costs and improving your security posture, but rather a strategy that ensures that all the applications in your portfolio directly contribute to your business goals. So, the question hereon is no longer whether you need APM or not, but how soon you can start! When you are kick starting your Application Portfolio Management strategy, ensure that you reach out to the right technology and solutions partner.