Rational IQ - Application and Infrastructure Rationalization

How can organizations get more out of existing assets?

Estimates indicate organizations spend up to 80% of their budgets on maintaining existing assets (e.g. applications, data, infrastructure, vendors, people and processes). Tremendous value can be realized by:

• Assessing organizational processes and their contribution to business results
  
• Mapping IT applications and infrastructure to business processes
  
• Allocating costs and business value by asset area and business process
  
• Plotting the relative cost and performance of major asset areas
  
• Developing rationalization strategies to reduce overlap, cut costs and add business value

Barometrix uses the following Rationalization construct to plot the relative contribution and performance of assets where performance is always quantified:

Rationalization strategies are developed based on input from finance, lines of business users (via a Web survey), application/infrastructure heads, business and IT management. Strategies include:

• Maintain
• Consolidate
• Invest
• Retire

Strategies are tested using Precision IQ™ to construct different scenarios and develop comprehensive rationalization business cases across the enterprise portfolio.

Sample Rationalization Scenario I	Sample Rationalization Scenario II

Serious rationalization efforts require serious software and services. Barometrix and its partners use a six step process for Application and Infrastructure Rationalization, supported by Barometrix software:

Step I - Asset Discovery. Using Barometrix templates clients create the necessary background data for assessing strategies.

Step II - Mapping and Chunking. Assets are grouped into logical categories with business meaning. This might involve creating application ‘suites’ and mapping into business processes (e.g. for application rationalization) or grouping assets by architecture (e.g. for infrastructure rationalization). Dependencies and linkages are established at this point to provide a clear picture of the interrelationships between assets.

Step III - Asset Valuation. Costs are allocated by grouping. Users of assets are then surveyed to identify the relative importance of assets to the mission of the organization. Survey results are tied to organizational financials to monetize subjective user ratings.

Step IV - Portfolio Analysis. Portfolios are constructed and evaluated on the basis of cost, asset values, asset usage, financial return, strategic importance and other defined objectives.

Step V - Rationalization Strategies. Rationalization strategies are evaluated to determine the optimum approach using a combination of cost benefit analysis, portfolio optimization, risk assessment and financial impact.

Step VI - Ongoing Management and Governance. Using an ongoing lifecycle and governance approach rationalization scenarios and strategies are tracked and kept up-to-date.

Barometrix software and partner services support your rationalization efforts, from strategy to ongoing management, across the enterprise portfolio. We stress business decisions based on quantifiable results that tie back to organizational financial metrics.

For more information about Barometrix application and infrastructure rationalization solutions contact us.