Plan for Application Consolidation

Many consolidation projects are poorly planned, costly, and time consuming. They result in angry executives, unhappy users, and put IT in the hot seat. Systems remain in place to handle custom functionality that wasn’t considered, business units refuse to adopt the changes, or the new system won’t meet future business objectives.
The move to a consolidated application solution has three challenges: how to identify and select the consolidation candidates, how to present the selected candidates for recommendation, and how to deal with pushback from those who will have to change how they do their work (both IT and users).
IT must develop application consolidation plans that not only provide real net value to IT but also minimize potential disruption to the organization.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

Using application consolidation to eliminate redundancies has long been a favorite target of IT leaders because it demonstrably reduces IT costs. Many organizations fail to plan the consolidation strategy and wind up investing in failed projects.
Application consolidation is not just pairing up applications that seem similar. Taking stock of the application portfolio, and analyzing and filtering applications for key criteria are the secret to identifying the best fit consolidation candidates.
The application assessment process is a project that requires collaboration between IT and the business. Investment in this process avoids costly expenditures on large, ill-fated consolidation projects.
This solution set will help IT leaders identify areas where consolidation will provide economic value, enhance organizational efficiency, and increase organizational capability.

Impact and Result

Initial planning and assessment is a mandatory activity to avoid sinking funds in non-starter application consolidation projects.
This solution set provides you with the tools and advice you need to plan and recommend application consolidation projects that will simplify business processes, reduce IT costs, and streamline the application portfolio.

Plan for Application Consolidation Research & Tools

1. Understand the need to plan before beginning application consolidation.

Recommend consolidation projects that will reduce IT costs and simplify business processes.

2. Assess the organization's readiness for a consolidation project.

Measure the organizational will and capability to deliver a software consolidation project.

3. Create a plan for assessing the application portfolio for consolidation.

Establish a framework for documenting the responsibilities and costs for the application assessment project.

4. Identify the IT and business resource requirements for documenting and analyzing the project portfolio.

Develop a budget for the application assessment.

5. Document the application inventory and key criteria.

Select the best candidates for application consolidation.

6. Create project proposals for application consolidation.

Secure approval for application consolidation recommendations.

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Authors

Deborah Wilcox

Sheryl Long

Contributors

The following clients provided interviews, insight, and tool testing for the solution set:

Peter Valters, General Manager, Empowered Networks
Brian Joyce, IT Director, Decosimo Joseph & Company LLP
Sandie Terry, IT Director, Franklin County VA
Norman Weiner, CIO, Kaizen InfoSource LLC
David Fritzke, IT Executive, YMCA of Metropolitan Milwaukee
Mark Pettigrew, IT Project Manager, Huhtamaki Americas Inc.
Mathew Colona, CIO, Pite Duncan
Geetha Sendhil, Director of Student Affairs Technology, University of Nevada Las Vegas

There were five other companies who also provided assistance but for reasons of confidentiality requested not to be named.