A central architecture capability provides the flexibility, scalability and responsiveness to prepare the organization for rapid and unpredictable growth and innovation. Application rationalization uses effective dashboards, reports and impact analysis ensures that the onboarding and implication of new technology and systems are fully understood, while risks and challenges such as costs, compliance and inefficiency are mitigated. In essence, the value of the new applications and any associated implications are easily demonstrable to non-technical stakeholders.
Sci-fi enthusiasts and conspiracy theorists alike will be very familiar with the trope of advancing technology being used to control us. In the realm of fantasy this will typically be triggered by malevolent intent… a faceless corporation, malicious government or even sentient AI. In reality, no such force exists, but we are nonetheless increasingly (and perhaps alarmingly) at the mercy of, and dependent on, myriad sprawling devices, applications and systems. There are countless statistics banded around regarding how few minutes need to pass for the average person to check their phone and how many hours a day we spend glued to a screen – all of which serve to illustrate just how reliant we are.
When we are in control of this technology it supports us, augmenting our social lives and how we work, as well as providing us with entertainment, information and instant communication. However, if we let our grasp start to slip the roles start to reverse. Technology becomes frustrating, time consuming and expensive. We sometimes only realize how much at the whims of technology we are, when it begins to falter and fail our expectations. In this insidious way, the machines really can take control and technology can be a capricious beast.
We must therefore find a way to orchestrate, consolidate and aggregate technology in a way that works for us. Take for instance television streaming services. In the UK, a television box set can be released to Netflix. Or Amazon. Or Sky. By the end of the year UK viewers will also be able to use streaming services from Disney. And BritBox. Perhaps Hulu will create an international offering in the near future. There’s also myriad bespoke platforms and services online providing niche content. No matter how wet behind the ears, no-one will be optimistic about the flourishing abundance of choice.
The financial costs of multiple subscriptions will spiral and so will our frustrations. The applications do not share an interface, television shows will be spread an across an array of locations and if you only invest in one option, how do you decide which? Then there’s the administrative aspect: keeping track of the bills, price changes and knowing where to look for the show you like! There is understandably a concern amongst the general public about how the emergence of all these new services will affect their finance and time. It is clearly not an efficient outcome.
This unfolding situation is essentially a personalized, small-scale situation similar to that facing the modern enterprise. Businesses that undergo transformation will onboard technology in an organic fashion. Every acquisition the company goes through will see the technical systems, applications and data come with it. This includes everything from databases, mainframes, infrastructure tools and modern web apps. Different departments are always looking to onboard technology that will increase their efficiency and multiple tools doing very similar functions may be incorporated under the radar. Suddenly the new company is at the mercy of technology it is unfamiliar with.
None of the potential solutions to this scenario are particularly attractive. A large scale migration project is expensive and slow. If the enterprise is unprepared there may well be compliance risks with how the data is managed – it may even be lost if the project is undertaken in a haphazard manner or without a thorough understanding of consequences. If such a project is not undertaken, siloes emerge, applications with functional overlap proliferate and visibility into processes becomes nigh-on impossible. The situation becomes extreme if the organization is rapidly growing and/or acquiring multiple companies at speed.
To overcome these challenges, the solution is (counterintuitively) another tool. A platform that can rationalize, aggregate and align technology before it gets out of control. A tool that provides a single source of truth can help to standardize disparate technologies.
A central architecture capability provides the flexibility, scalability and responsiveness to prepare the organization for rapid and unpredictable growth and innovation. Application rationalization uses effective dashboards, reports and impact analysis ensures that the onboarding and implication of new technology and systems are fully understood, while risks and challenges such as costs, compliance and inefficiency are mitigated. In essence, the value of the new applications and any associated implications are easily demonstrable to non-technical stakeholders.
An effective enterprise architecture tool enables an efficient outcome-focused approach by modeling out businesses, being able to virtually replicate systems and view applications and processes holistically. Visibility, an intuitive interface and centralized management pane all work together to address the overarching business goals, facilitating agility, built-in quality, transparency and program execution.
Ultimately, as technology advances, large organizations must find a way to rationalize the sprawling network of applications, systems and processes. Being able to harness and understand innovation is key, otherwise technology simply spirals out of control, consuming our time, money and resources.
Get in touch to find out how your organization could benefit from a centralized architecture and rationalized application portfolio.