How To Decide Which Applications To Retire In Your Organisation

It’s not uncommon for companies to have a plethora of enterprise apps, but not all of them may be useful. It’s a good idea to take a closer look at your organisations catalogue of apps and cut down the numbers. There are two metrics you can use to help you decide which apps to cull.

Enterprise apps image from Shutterstock

Bringing down the number of apps will help reduce complexity and the ease the burden of managing such a large portfolio of software for IT teams. Companies can use two simple metrics to deciding on which apps to retire, according to CEB Applications Leadership Council managing director Mark Tonsetic. CEB is a technology and management consultancy firm.

There are two common types of data that nearly all IT teams would collect: service desk tickets and application usage data.

“These can give a more precise signal of whether an application is on the verge of obsolescence, or disrupting employees’ day-to-day work,” Tonsetic said in a blog post.

1. Service desk tickets expose hidden cost drains: While a high volume of service desk tickets can indicate that a popular application needs support, a lack of service desk tickets altogether can indicate a lack of users.
 
… In short, if no one wants an application to be fixed, they probably don’t want it at all. Simplify your portfolio immediately by retiring these applications, and few (if anyone) will notice the difference.
 
2. Usage data shows where to pick your battles: Even when an application has a moderate volume of service requests, usage data can identify when it is useful only to a small audience. Identify applications that have a limited number of individual login attempts to find cases where the majority of service desk tickets come from a select few, often the last holdouts of a redundant application who have not yet moved on to a newer system.

[Via CEB Global Blog]


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