Why Application Portfolio Management?

In the digital era, the myriad of software and technology continues to grow. For CIO, IT leaders and Enterprise Architects, the need for an optimized, agile and flexible application landscape has never been greater. Leaders and senior execs will be familiar with the often frustrating glorification of start-ups; with their nimble culture, agile methodology and ability to get things done with little bureaucracy. These ‘up-and-comers’ can be agile and effective in getting things done, fast. Larger companies, in contrast, can be seen as slow to adapt and lackadaisical in their response to changing markets. But while innovative start-ups come up with new ideas and execute them quickly, today’s global CIO has to help the business understand why this “just do it” approach won't cut it for the larger organization – innovation and transformation simply takes longer and costs more as complexity grows. Mergers and acquisitions, disparate business units and global entities with individual approaches all contribute to application sprawl and technological complexity. IT leaders are left with a choice. Attempting to streamline in a way that allows the organization to compete with more agile competitors generally results in sacrificing your time-to-market, and can often mean opportunities are lost – things simply takes too long. Alternatively, standalone innovation or transformation teams can be put in place to execute at speed, but minimal integration with existing systems and processes ultimately leads to application sprawl in the long-run.

Managing an organization's application portfolio has never been so challenging.