Business questions focused on Transparency

The business question What is our application portfolio? provides the most comprehensive analysis of the applications in your IT and and ensures a single source of truth about your application portfolio. A key task in application portfolio management is to understand the health of the application portfolio, where redundancies exist in applications and their technologies, how those applications impact the business capabilities, and which applications can be retired. The analytics for this business question ensure transparency about the application portfolio and provides immediate up-to-date insights for decision-making.

The business question What is our technical debt? focuses on the critical dependence that an application has to the technological component that it relies on to run. Lifecycle information provides insight to potential conflicts and risks due to end-of-life technologies. Identify at-risk applications that are critical to the business and derive the necessary measures to mitigate potential risk before an application or component goes out of service.

The business question What are our architectural dependencies? focuses on the interconnections between applications based on their data exchange. The visualization shows the dependence that upstream applications have to a specific application via incoming information flows and that downstream applications have to a specific application by means of outgoing information flows. Review the dependencies between applications to understand the business data that may be at risk, assess potential challenges to application migration, and identify areas where complexity may be reduced.

The business question Who are our vendors? provides an overview of the vendors that support your IT portfolio. The information helps you to understand who your top 10 vendors are, which vendors support mission-critical business capabilities, and which vendors support technologies that are no longer used in your company. Review whether your company is at risk due to too much reliance on a single vendor or whether you might consolidate vendors in order to benefit from preferential rates from a single vendor.

The business question Which business process areas require the most IT support? provides a snapshot of the as-is application landscape organized according to the business processes they support. Review where application-dense business processes exist and whether redundant applications can be rationalized. Identify where application support is missing for critical business processes to identify potential risks. Evaluate applications based on KPIs to ensure transparency about the dependencies between the business and IT.

The business question What is our OPEX distribution? provides an overview of operational cost drivers. The analytics allow you to identify the most costly applications. Review the cost break down according to cost types and development types. This business question highlights your company's cost evolution over time and enables a what-if analysis to understand the financial results of rationalization activities.

The business question What is our CAPEX distribution? provides an overview of your projects and their costs. The analytics visualize the current and planned project budgets on a yearly basis and identify the most important investment and divestment candidates. Review your current year projects per cost type so that you understand CAPEX trends, optimize project planning, and streamline the investment portfolio.