Those of you that follow Essential will know that we have mentioned a number of times our intention to build ‘lenses’ to support specific business problems, and we are delighted to have launched our first lens, the Application Portfolio Management (APM) lens. APM provides everything you need to transform and manage your Application Portfolio – a methodology, simplified data capture and import, and a pack of views to allow you to quickly understand where you have opportunities to decrease cost and increase agility.
APM utilises Essential’s extensive meta model to build a set of views, based on our consulting work with clients globally, to support their application initiatives. Data gathering is something any company must do for an application transformation project; we have tailored and simplified a set of capture spreadsheets and pre-configured import specifications so it is as quick and easy to complete as possible. The lens provides a dedicated set of views and uses algorithms, acting on the data captured, to allow informed decision making.
Application Portfolio Management is not simply about reducing the number of applications; rather it aims to ensure that the application landscape enables the business to achieve its strategic objectives in the most efficient and effective manner. See the website and demo for further detail.
We are in the process of developing further lenses, including Data Management and Strategic Resource Optimisation, so watch this space for further updates. We’d love to hear your views on APM and your ideas for future lenses that would make your life easier, feel free to drop us a line.