Application Portfolio Rationalization and Modernization

The mass proliferation of mobile technology has made the adoption of web applications easier than ever before. However, the increased complexity has created a complex web of interdependencies and communication between apps that can negatively impact application performance and security.
The modern application portfolio is not only responsible for improving business efficiency, but also for driving innovation within your organization. It is expected that the global application modernization services market size will go up to USD 24.8 billion by 2025, at a CAGR of 16.8%.
This article explores five key issues that must be addressed when modernizing your application portfolio or re-platforming existing ones:

The Problem with Overgrown Application Portfolios

The biggest problem with overgrown application portfolios is that they’re not being retired, replaced, consolidated, or modernized. In short: they’re not being de-commissioned.
This means that a group of applications that were once considered essential to the operation of the business is now just holding onto valuable resources—resources that could be much more efficiently used elsewhere in your organization. And it’s not just about money; it’s also about time and effort spent on maintaining these systems when they could easily be eliminated or replaced with newer technologies.
The good news is that by rethinking how you manage your applications portfolio (re-platforming), you can reduce costs while improving efficiencies for all parts involved in running those apps day to day: from developers using them to users accessing them via mobile devices; from IT staff maintaining those applications across various platforms like Microsoft Azure cloud service instances running Linux virtual machines

Understanding the Sprawling Web of Interdependencies

The first step to making your application portfolio more manageable is understanding the interdependencies between applications. In other words, how can you tell which applications depend on other applications?
Identify the most important applications. The first thing to do when trying to determine what will be in your portfolio is to identify which apps are critical for your business and therefore must remain in place as part of your company’s system today (and tomorrow).
This includes all of those that are used every day by employees at all levels throughout the organization —and it doesn’t mean just “frontline” workers; it means everyone from executives down through middle managers and even IT staff members who run day-to-day operations like HR or finance departments have access to these tools so they can do their jobs effectively.
Identify the least critical ones…but only after determining exactly why they’re there. Once again, this may seem obvious but many companies don’t realize just how much time they’ve spent programming code because they haven’t identified any real value being added by doing so until later down the road when someone comes along who tells them otherwise: “Hey boss/director/presidential candidate/etc., we need another one here!” When asking yourself “why?” during each phase (trying out new features), keep this question foremost in mind before making any changes whatsoever.”

Assessing Value of Applications

You must identify which applications are no longer used, relevant, secure, and cost-effective.
These can be done by reviewing your portfolio of applications to determine whether they are still in use, or have been replaced by newer technologies that offer better functionality than the old ones. This will help you make informed decisions about what needs to be re-deployed or migrated into new environments.

Re-Platforming and Modernization to Streamline Operations

While modernizing and re-platforming your application portfolio may be costly, it will ultimately help you streamline operations. This is because, by simplifying the number of applications that are being supported on one platform, you can reduce costs and simplify processes.
In addition to clarifying which applications need to be maintained or updated in order to comply with new regulations or standards — such as PCI DSS 2.0 — modernizing and re-platforming can also help reduce complexity by reducing the number of systems used by various departments within an organization.

Nearly 60% of organizations surveyed have more than 100 apps, while 15% own over 1000 applications.

The problem with having too many applications is that it’s hard to manage, maintain and monetize them.
Nearly 60% of organizations surveyed have more than 100 apps, while 15% own over 1000 applications. This means that many organizations are spending time on managing their app portfolio as well as ensuring they can generate a reasonable return on investment (ROI).

Conclusion

Understanding the problem of overgrown application portfolios is a critical step that organizations need to address. The second step is to determine how to modernize and streamline the applications in your portfolio.
We’ve looked at some of the challenges that IT teams face when trying to rationalize their application portfolios, but they don’t need to be insurmountable. There are many ways organizations can modernize their apps and make them more secure while improving efficiency.