Building on IT portfolio foundations: Re-architecting the enterprise with MEGA International

16 July 2018 | 3248 Shares

Source: MEGA International

Every department and division across an enterprise must operate under financial constraints. That’s basic budgeting.

Pressures to be more productive, reduce costs, and constantly remain proactive mean that managers are always looking for new ways to achieve these non-complementary goals. Because today’s IT departments underpin every function in the enterprise, IT’s role is a strategic one. However, misdeployed resources, unforeseen budget demands, inability to deliver on promises, and sudden hikes in costs are simply not acceptable; the consequences are too far-reaching.

IT strategic planning became part of digital transformation initiatives when companies began to rationalize their assets via portfolio management projects. This began the journey to a new, streamlined IT function in the enterprise, adopting new technologies and providing better support for business strategies as they evolved.

Any new business initiative or transformative project must closely examine a company’s IT portfolio. With portfolio management comes the ability to plan, scale, and support the rest of the enterprise. Companies are increasingly turning to MEGA International as the best-in-class supplier of IT portfolio management solutions to support enterprise architecture change initiatives.

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MEGA’s solutions can help track and categorize thousands of applications in use across large companies. Sometimes, siloed software and supporting infrastructure have been catalogued, but those tools used in the audit, and the databases produced, may also exist within the same silo; they cannot communicate the overall picture, and therefore lack strategic worth.

Additionally, the auditing frequently uncovers legacy installations, which have taken place outside the oversight of IT management, for one reason or another (… often too politically incendiary to dwell on!) While some systems will no longer be supported, it is essential to find those which are mission-critical and are reaching end-of-life or are no longer fit for purpose.

By engaging with business leaders across multiple divisions, IT departments can construct topologies which not only replace legacy provision, but place the IT function on an agile footing to fulfil its more strategic role in the enterprise. Successful IT portfolio management leads to IT strategic planning, which in turn, drives business innovation.

A senior vice president at MEGA international, Robert Raiola, also pinpoints other advantages of a strategic approach to IT portfolio management:

“Amongst the hundreds, if not thousands of applications currently in use, businesses are paying for code that they don’t use, on hardware and technology that’s out of date. Better to recreate what the software does; or decommission it entirely.”

The challenge for IT, while working alongside the enterprise-class solutions from MEGA, is to support business innovation without increasing budgets. Through this collaboration, legacy costs can be significantly reduced, the enterprise can develop a clear technological roadmap, and architecting can progress in an informed manner across the organization.

A summary in a Gartner survey of 2018 stated (the “CIO Agenda Survey”):

“At least 84 percent of top CIOs surveyed have responsibility for areas of the business outside traditional IT. […] When asked about their success criteria, top CIOs report they are already close to the ideal split where more focus of their performance metrics is on business outcomes rather than IT delivery. […] the ideal balance is 56 percent of metrics related to business outcomes, such as revenue growth, business margins and influencing business strategy, and 44 percent related to IT delivery.”

Even without any of the other advantages, just getting a handle on the security implications of unused or legacy applications makes the use of MEGA’s software worthwhile. The solutions allow enterprise architects to discover any compliance and regulatory dangers presented by non-standard installations, as well as ascertain the security risks of obsolete deployments.

By rationalizing IT provision, business transformation can take place with the underpinning support it requires going forward. It’s necessary to have the correct level of automation in an IT project portfolio management resource. Once attained, enterprises are able to balance IT needs with capacity and resources.

Having a “single source of truth” across the company makes it possible to manage information for IT strategic planning and digital transformation. By incorporating business strategy into the IT decision-making process, IT projects are aligned to business objectives.

Working more efficiently, reducing costs, and with a strategic eye on the future — your journey begins with a single step, and that should be with MEGA International. To speak with a local representative about how MEGA’s software can support your business needs, please click here.