Organizations today can’t function without technology – a lot of technology. Applications, and the infrastructure that supports them, are essential elements to virtually every aspect of business. Those technologies are continually advancing, bringing new functionality, updated versions, new infrastructure requirements and shifting licensing and permissions needs.
If technology costs and risks are to be controlled effectively, it is essential that organizations are proactively managing all of their technology. But technology changes all the time, so how do those costs and risks get managed effectively in such a rapidly changing environment?
Clearly, it is IT's responsibility to be accountable for managing technology environments. So-called "shadow IT," where business departments work directly with vendors to acquire applications, systems, etc., can increase organizational technology risk in multiple ways:
- The technology may not comply with policies around security, privacy, audit, etc.
- The solutions may not be compatible with the organizational infrastructure environment.
- Control over licensing and access is not centrally managed as part of standard user profiles, which can also drive costs higher.
- Maintenance, upgrades, and lifecycle management aren't part of the overall management of the IT environment.
- Individually negotiated acquisitions are unlikely to be able to leverage existing vendor relationships and ensure that the best pricing is secured.
So, IT has to own all technology investments to be able to control costs and risks, but how do they do it effectively? Trying to manually track assets in spreadsheets or other standalone systems isn’t going to work. Things will get missed, exposing the organization to the same issues as shadow IT, but now risking impacts to all applications and systems. Redundant applications will persist, unsupported systems and platforms won’t be replaced, and licensed users will continue to expand with no consideration of need.
To comprehensively approach these risks, we have to start with application portfolio management, or APM. APM allows IT leaders to develop a comprehensive inventory of all software in use across the enterprise. Leveraging the Now platform, APM can capture all of the characteristics of those applications in a way that is integrated with the rest of the organization. That means that it becomes much easier to identify outdated and unsupported applications, redundant software, and so on. Management and maintenance of the application portfolio can be automated, making it much easier to stay current, and all stakeholders can have insight into the portfolio, providing visibility and understanding. The costs and risks are immediately reduced.
But that’s just the start. Applications can be mapped to business capabilities allowing technology leaders to understand how digital assets enable business success, and identifying where gaps or overlaps exist. Additionally, application lifecycles can be managed, with planned upgrade and development paths as wells as scheduled retirement and replacement. And because APM works together with ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM), the work needed to implement those changes to the application inventory can seamlessly integrate with the strategic roadmap, scheduled investments and approved work.
And we’re still only just scratching the surface. In the next blog we’ll look at how another ServiceNow solution integrates into this environment, and explore all the ways that costs and risks can be controlled in more detail.
To learn more about optimizing technology spend and mitigating risk, check out our latest podcast here.
