In the last blog we started to look at cost optimization at a time when organizations are seeking to ensure that every dollar spent is working as hard as possible for the business. And we began to explore the challenges of managing technology costs. This is a clear priority for IT leaders, but many are struggling with standalone tools that have only incomplete, outdated information and no way to validate the accuracy.
As a result, shadow IT continues to proliferate, redundant and obsolete applications drive unnecessary costs and risks, and technology lifecycles are more guesswork than strategy. That's all before we even consider how to do anything about those costs. But it doesn’t have to be that way. ServiceNow has two closely related technology tools that can help organizations gain complete visibility into their technology environments, manage current costs, and plan future improvements. Those tools are IT Asset Management (ITAM) and Application Portfolio Management (APM).
Working together, ServiceNow ITAM and APM provide IT organizations with the ability to manage technology lifecycles, control costs and ensure that risk is always within tolerances. Addressing everything from an application retirement and replacement strategy to the handling of user licenses, IT leaders have clear visibility into everything that is happening. More importantly, all of the technologies under management are directly connected to the business capabilities that they support, allowing organizations to relate technology investments to business performance.
This allows for the analysis of current technologies to identify where opportunities to rationalize and improve productivity exist. It also allows for meaningful collaboration between technology and business partners on proposed new investments. All of that helps ensure that upcoming investments are aligned not just with strategic priorities, but also with the goal of cost optimization.
Further, the ability to analyze technology investments with total transparency means that it is also easy to identify the most appropriate actions to take to improve those technologies. When work is required to retire and replace a current application, that work can be sized and scoped with confidence, allowing the funding request to be included in other proposed investments and providing executives with a single, complete view of all required and desired discretionary investments.
With ITAM and APM both integrating with the Now platform, proposed investments can feed into the single demand funnel managed in ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM). This integration also allows for IT insight and analysis to be shared across the enterprise. Proposed technology investments can be added to the organizational strategic roadmap, showing not just upcoming planned work, but also relationships between technology and business capabilities.
This integration with ServiceNow SPM is the key. While ITAM and APM can provide unmatched insight into where investments need to be made, and how to structure those investments, cost optimization only occurs when the work is actually completed. That’s what is managed through SPM, and that’s what we’ll explore in the next blog.
