White Papers and the New Approach: Business Growth - Application Consolidation

Traditional/Conventional white papers will have sections includes; Introduction, Challenges, Constraints, Implementation methodology/Process Flow, Advantages/Benefits and finally conclusions with no choices :-)

Always thought, why are we sticking to age old concept; Why are we not coming up with interesting thought/concept, which will tickle readers brain while reading & conveys message with less effort.

The Approach paper on Business Growth is my experiment output of new thought process;

“We need to think strategically” Prashanth, the group director says to Rajeev.

“Reducing Overheads and Juniorization are the only way to increase our profit margin?” Rajeev Narayan, the delivery manager says.

“Productivity improvement” Narasimha who was standing behind, pitches his thoughts.

Agastya Raj, the quality manager walked over to join the conversation after hearing Rajeev supersonic voice.

“Those are internal strategies but those will take sweet time to show value to add to clients” Aravind Krishnan explains and continues “ There are many competitors waiting outside the door; if we don’t barge in sweetly then there is chance of losing contract in near term”

“We got to think beyond Juniorization, shift optimization or shift money reduction, overhead optimization and problem management” Laxmi Teja, the delivery manager provides his perception as he joins the conversation.

“Nothing left to think as you excluded all possibilities” Srinivas Prabhu, delivery manager adds as he joins the discussion.

“Apart from all the above stated, if you want me to state then it would be Business Growth” Sujan Reddy who completed PMP recently adds as he wanted to prove his capability badly.

“Here comes PMP !!” Nikhil Prasad mutters.

“Organic growth will happen when the client is happy with our service delivery” As Rajeev says, he looks at Agastya. 

“Let’s not worry about too many things; we should be more worried about our account and how we optimize cost and make customer happy which will eventually bring in more business there by profit to our BU” Agastya says and looks in to all the curious faces.

“Let’s not wait for something bad to happen; proactively we will do something to make customer happy first” Sujan being a PMP certified recently puts his views.

“Hmm….what is Something PMP …what is the value we can provide to business or client which will make them happy apart from effective on-time and defect free delivery?” Amit sathe questions all.

Everyone jaws slipped and all were more curious to know who will answer.

“Application consolidation” Agastya says.

“What? Application consolidation; what it means?” Rajeev asks with surprise.

“The only way we can improve our organic growth is by reducing cost of IT to client and providing value which will lead business growth” Sujan clarifies.

“How are we going to do it” Amit sathe asks.

“Is it same consolidation concept which is happening in all the major companies?” Teja asks.

“IT Client Organizations are looking far greater savings than saving from problem management and proactive monitoring” Sujan says.

“Agastya, are you talking about server consolidation or Application consolidation?” Prashanth asks.

“Both may be; as far as our account is concerned we should be more worried about the application consolidation but if we do both Server and Infra consolidation then it would have far more benefits” Agastya says as he looks in to Prashanth eyes.

“My point is, since we are supporting client on AM & infra; we should look in to both” Prashanth tenders his thoughts.

Sujan pitches in and says “As I was preparing for PMP; I read few articles on application consolidation and they state that application consolidation will be incremental & more difficult than the server/infra consolidation”

 “Sujan, I also read one of the articles by Michael Biddick. He says “In terms of business justification, the case for consolidating apps is one of the easiest to make but the hardest to implement. Every application has a loyal constituency of users adamant about not losing the perceived unique capabilities of (and their comfort level with) their app of choice. App consolidation often becomes a political nightmare that scares IT away from forcing tough choices”” Aravind Adds.

“Hello smarty’s, still I am not clear on consolidation concept. At least give me overview and how are we going to benefit” Rajeev pleads.

“Rajeev, in simple words; Consolidation is nothing but termination of unused, discontinued, redundant or non-strategic products, resources or services” Agastya explains.

“Now, I got it; can you explain bit more on benefits and how we will do it in lay man terms please” Rajeev says as he looks bit relaxed.

“Simple example is our recent acquisition; what we did is to remove unnecessary duplication of business processes, IT applications and infrastructure” Agastya puts his thoughts.

“Yes, like HR tools and finance tools” Rajeev was curious.

“Perfect; why did we do that?” Agastya questions.

“Cost cutting and remove duplications” Rajeev says as he gets in to the concept.        

“Right; but there will be numerous challenges while doing application rationalization so management has to come up with strategies on Platinum, Gold and Silver apps consolidations” Agastya says.

“Platinum, Gold and Silver apps consolidations?” Praveen asks with question marks on his face.

“Platinum is long term, Gold is Mid-term and Silver is Short-term. Silver apps can be identified which are not used & no users, can be terminated with little analysis on the impact” Narasimha pitches to the ring with his inputs.

“In few cases like our HR tool; old applications are retained even though new ones are implemented just because of having access to historic data” Prashanth tells with surprise on his face for which everyone nods there head.

“Gold apps can be identified which has redundant functionalities” Sujan adds.

“Finally, platinum apps are more related to business process reengineering aspects like optimization, redesigning the architecture” Rajeev says with full confidence.

“In our terminology, Platinum change can be perfective maintenance and obviously which needs larger investment but give benefits in longer terms” Teja adds.

“How do we start?”Narasimha asks.

“Guess we need business approval to drive this initiative” Praveen says.

“Of course, this kind of strategic decision should be taken by our management in coordination with Business IT people” Sujan adds.

“Each application exchange may require changes in working processes, and thereby training and communication for the affected users. These are like joint ventures; to be driven client business & IT support” Teja adds and Vikram who is account manager joins the conversation.

“Guys, before going to management we should come up with solid framework, systematic approach and metadata which will help us in convincing management on this drive” Rajeev says as he gets in to the nerves of the discussion.

 “Agastya is the right person to suggest us what need to be done” Sujan says.

“Little easier for our account as we have application information readily available and we have already portfolio grouping for each application based on Line of service, type & usability of the application” Vikram suggests.

“And also, we have clear cut information on the upstream & downstream applications in SLA pdf document, info related apps architecture - technical and infra environment & user info in production guides or in Wikipedia or we can also look at the KM App map” Agastya adds to Vikram statement.

“So, you are saying; we should start with detailed analysis may be gap analysis/assessment, second Information gathering and third implementation” Rajeev concludes.

“Challenges, constraints and dependencies will always be there in all the organization or in accounts or in projects and with this kind of initiative there will be but to we got to ensure to identify challenges & constraints in the early stage during gap analysis with required mitigation plans” Vikram gives his best speech of his life and all were able to feel the heat.   

“Let’s start and prepare proposal to management on the application consolidation” Rajeev says and everyone nods with full josh.

“As I stated earlier; it’s not easy as we put forth out thoughts but it is not impossible at all and this is the only way to gain customer confidence and loyalty which might bring in business” Agastya adds.

“Goal of consolidation should be reduced complexity, reduce cost of operations and increased flexibility” Vikram provides inputs.

“Overall Objectives will be Increase in customer satisfaction on the business value and organic growth which will lead to business growth & profit” Teja adds.

Agastya concludes “Growth can be achieved thorough Application Consolidation”.