The Process of Application Portfolio Management (APM)

Businesses are investing in technology. Most of the processes that used to be manual in the past are now automated with software applications. In this respect, it is also critical that businesses can manage their technology assets.

Here we come across the concepts of Application Portfolio Management, Software Asset Management, IT Asset Management and IT Service Management.

What is Application Portfolio Management (APM)?

Application Portfolio Management (APM) is a management process of all the software applications and licenses to analyze the performance, sustainability, benefits, user experience, and much more in enterprises. The more technology expands all over the world, the more quantity of software applications increases. This increment brings complexity and even makes harder the decision of whether keep an application or eliminate it. That is why we create an APM system in the first place. APM systems aim to facilitate all process concerning a software application, reduce cost by eliminating unnecessary applications, and shows visually -with many graphics- life cycles of applications. Along with these features, all your licenses are gathered easily in one place and you can easily access all your applications whenever you want.

APM is a set of business practices that allows IT leaders to understand and optimize the value of applications to their organizations. This includes processes for identifying and assessing the value of all applications and making decisions about which applications to retire, refactor or keep as they are.

The goal of APM is to ensure that an organization's resources, such as budget, personnel and technology infrastructure, are going to the best use possible.

APM has three distinct phases -- assessment, decision making and implementation -- with ongoing monitoring of applications in between each phase.

Why Enterprises Need Application Portfolio Management?

In the last decades, the augmentation of software applications forces enterprises to save information about their applications. Today even the smallest enterprises have lots of software applications, and each of them keeps their information in different ways. Enterprises that do not use an APM usually utilize spreadsheets to save their data. However, when it comes to making a decision about a software application or just checking out which application they use at this point, things are getting complicated.

They spend a lot of time and effort to extract the data they need, the much worse is after extracting the data, they are really far from making a decision. That is why enterprises must implement 'Application Portfolio Management'. With Application Portfolio Management Software, enterprises will save their time, energy, and resources and when it comes to deciding to invest in an application or eliminate some, decision-makers will have a clear and simple guide to tell them what is to keep or not.

Key Processes of Application Portfolio Management

Application portfolio management is not a one-time process. As long as businesses are active, application inventories should continue to be monitored, managed and evaluated periodically. The following are the key APM processes:

Inventory Management

The primary purpose of inventory management is to maintain an accurate, up-to-date record of all applications in production and/or development. Inventory management typically includes app names and descriptions, licensing information and other pertinent data.

Application Rationalization or Optimization

This activity includes evaluating the value of each app and determining how well it aligns with business goals. Some organizations use a matrix that rates each app on four criteria: strategic importance, technical performance, operational efficiency and business impact. An application score is derived from the overall rating and can help determine whether an app should be moved to the cloud or discontinued altogether. Rationalization can also help identify apps to include in a modernization initiative.

Application Migration Planning

Application migration is an important part of keeping software current and reducing the risk of obsolescence. Moving an existing application to a new platform or environment — for example, moving an on-premises app to the cloud — requires significant business analysis, planning, testing and implementation processes that must be carefully managed to avoid disruption and downtime issues.

Benefits of Application Portfolio Management

Application Portfolio Management basically aims the simplify the decisions, create a visual dashboard, and gather all applications in one place in order the access them easily and efficiently. When the system does that, we can state the process of this management at fundamentally these points:

• Creates a full inventory of all applications.
• Determines the life cycle of your applications.
• Determines the business value and function of each application.
• Determines the costs of all applications.
• Shows your applications in a TIME chart.
• Eliminates unnecessary applications.
• Optimizes your resources against your applications.
• Analyzes sustainability and make reports of your applications.

Understanding the Value of Application Portfolio Management

Application Portfolio Management Practices for Organizations

The following are recommended practices for organizations to implement and follow when developing their APM programs:

1. Educate leaders about APM

Leaders need to understand the value of application portfolio management and how it will improve business performance. They must also be able to support this initiative with funding and resources, including staff, tools and time.

2. Define the scope of the APM program

An organization's initial APM program might focus on an area in which there is an immediate need or opportunity — perhaps it has been tasked with reducing costs in a particular business unit or optimizing its use of cloud computing technologies. Once that initial scope has been successfully met, the scope of the APM program can be expanded over time until it encompasses all of an organization's applications.

3. Define success metrics for the APM program

Before beginning any IT initiative, including application rationalization efforts, stakeholders should agree on what will be considered successful outcomes for each portion of the project.

Today nearly all enterprises need such a system that facilitates the process of application management. And we believe simplicity and efficiency are two major keys you need to consider while you invest in an APM system. We believe Loggle has both of these and much more. Do not lose among the spreadsheets, give us and yourself a chance, try Loggle!