In the last couple of blogs, we’ve discussed faster time to value and the pursuit of healthy return on investment, within the context of Forrester’s recent total economic impact analysis for ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM), We’ve seen some of the highlights like the eight-week reduction in time to value and the 365% ROI over three years. The report also highlights some major financial headlines - $10.2 million saving for Forrester’s composite company through the elimination of unproductive investments, and $9.7 million from that aforementioned reduction in time to value.
But look beyond the headlines, and there are some meaningful benefits in areas that aren’t always recognized as being wasteful or inefficient, or at least aren’t believed to be as bad as Forrester’s analysis suggests. To understand, we need to consider what organizations need from their SPM solution.
To deliver effective strategic portfolio management, organizations need the right people with the right skills, and the right processes to enable work to be prioritized against goals and objectives, approved, funded, delivered and to achieve the expected benefits. For that to happen there must be consistent access to complete and accurate information that covers all of the following areas:
- The end-to-end SPM lifecycle through initial goal setting to benefits realization. It must also support multiple replanning and adjustment windows and enable roadmapping to allow this work to continue across multiple business cycles.
- Work delivery through all methods (agile, traditional, hybrid, etc.) and structures (programs, projects, products, epics, etc.).
- Contextualized information for all stakeholders to allow them to make decisions relevant to their roles. Whether it’s budgeted, forecast and actual financial data for CFOs; portfolio performance data for CSOs and their portfolio managers; or detailed work information for investment owners, product managers and the like, all stakeholders must be able to see information in a way that helps them manage.
- The ability to add insight to information. Through modeling and analysis tools, increasingly leveraging generative AI capabilities, SPM solutions must be able to do more than simply present information, they must be able to help the interpretation of that information to drive better, faster decisions.
When these areas are covered, the benefits are considerable as Forrester’s analysis shows. Improved efficiency in planning and reporting, in executive review and approval, in resource management, in data gathering and in documentation. These may not deliver the headline savings of reduced time to value or eliminating nonproductive work, but cumulatively they make a significant difference to the bottom line.
Perhaps more importantly, these are savings that persist with very little effort, improving employee experiences and freeing up resources to take advantage of other opportunities. Our SPM solution supports the entire strategic portfolio lifecycle across all work structures and methods, while allowing delivery teams to work however they choose. Information, supported by analysis to create insight is available however users need, providing an accurate view into all work at all times. If you'd like to learn more and view the Forrester TEI report in it's entirety check it out here.
