APM can provide the answers

The many benefits of application portfolio management (APM) are becoming more fully understood, writes Julian Dobbins

APM provides IT managers with visibility of which applications are consuming greater resources

Managing the complex array of business systems on which organisations depend has never been more difficult or more necessary. APM, however, is equipped to provide the insight needed for this task.

APM is a subset of IT governance that deals directly with the largest consumer of IT budget - the existing application portfolio. APM provides management insight by creating a knowledge base derived from all
relevant sources, such as application code, rate of change, costs and business value. This enables senior IT managers to assess cost and risk before committing further resources to particular applications.

APM provides IT managers with visibility of which applications are consuming greater resources, how complex they are or where the dependencies or compliance issues lie. This visibility, according to Forrester’s Phil Murphy, enables IT to communicate true costs back to the business application owners in a language they understand. “The common language promotes understanding.”

It is in this area of communication that many companies are already seeing advantages.

HSBC, Barclays and Banca Intesa have all seen huge benefits from closely managing outsourcing contracts. APM enables them to identify targets for outsourcing through increased portfolio understanding and to manage the quality of work.

Through the establishment of engagement frameworks and a baseline set of metrics, companies have implemented more rigorous service-level agreements, allowing for a climate of greater and more open communication around the common language that APM provides.

To succeed, APM initiatives must be driven from the very top of the organisation and must not be limited to life simply as an IT project. Only by business and IT working together within the context of business goals and a defined, ongoing enterprise architecture roadmap, can the ideal of an IT organisation that is truly aligned with the business ever be achieved.

Julian Dobbins is head of product development at Micro Focus.