How Application Rationalisation Can Save Your Business Money
When was the last time you audited your organisation’s application portfolio – all the software that’s currently sitting in your network? If you preside over a particularly large IT network with many users, the chances are you’ll be quite shocked at what you find.
More importantly, however, there’s a good chance that you’ll be surprised at just how much software waste is costing your business.
You may be paying for software applications you don’t really need. You may be paying for multiple application licences when you only need one. That’s needless waste that directly impacts your bottom line.
To perform a full application usage audit across all your user accounts, devices and networks would take you away from your primary responsibilities. Not only that; once the results are in, it is potentially much more time and effort to deal with the duplications and unused software titles.
That’s where Workspace IT can help. We offer a comprehensive application rationalisation service that separates the wheat from the chaff. Most organisations will have a tool or software product to audit installed software. This may be a specialist monitoring product, or it could be your deployment tool such as Config Manager, Intune or ManageEngine. Workspace IT can take the output and use it to identify redundant software and streamline your entire portfolio.
In short, our software waste experts can help decide which applications you need, which can be consolidated, and which can be reduced or permanently deleted.
Want to find out more about our approach to application rationalisation? Keep reading!
The most obvious cost of underutilised software is the upfront cost of the software or licences. If your business genuinely benefits from a particular application, great! Embrace it. Double down on it. Make it the go-to application in your business. But if only Bob from accounts is using it while your other 200 employees are using something else, it has to go.
Whether it’s CRM software or accounting applications, underutilised software is eating into your profitability. Redundant, dormant and duplicate licenses are also a big problem. Given the right raw information, our end-user computing specialists can review and optimise resource utilisation to prevent some or all of these potential pitfalls.
Some business software is paid for via a licence or subscription – based on the required features and user count. If you don’t need all the features or most users are utilising alternative applications that do the same job, you’re pretty much throwing money away.
If 90% of your employees use McAfee but you’re paying for multiple AVG licences, you’re needlessly wasting money. The same goes for CRM software, word processing packages, accounting platforms and countless other applications.
All applications receive regular updates and security patches. Even for a single application with multiple end-users, staying on top of these essential security updates can be a logistical nightmare unless you have the necessary expertise and specialised software. If you have five applications to manage, your workload and risk factors increase five-fold. In short, the more applications you have – regardless of how often they’re used – the greater the risk of data breaches and cyber threats.
Freeware software can be a risk to an organisation. It rarely comes with any warranty or support and is often littered with advertisements or requests for donations. Vulnerabilities in the software are common and there is no guarantee that the developer will make any effort to address them. An enterprise business should not reply on freeware, if there is a business need for software to perform a particular function, it should be paid for, supported and maintained. The team at Workspace IT will identify these products and highlight opportunities to improve your security posture.
Perhaps you’re paying for a great application that no one is using. Whether it’s due to a lack of training or operational issues, underutilising a valuable application might lead to members of your team performing vital functions manually or turning to less capable alternatives. The results include less efficient workflows, slower processing times and missed automation opportunities.
It’s easy to become frustrated when you’re trying to deliver a project, and seven members of your team are using seven different applications. When this is the case, software is rarely optimised, which can exacerbate frustrations and lead to low morale levels and higher staff turnover rates.
When you’re utilising multiple applications when sticking to the best one for the job will suffice, you’re probably not using any of those applications to their full potential. This can leave you at a competitive disadvantage and prevent your organisation from scaling up when growth starts to kick in.
If you stick to a single PDF solution across your organisation, you can deliver one training session to address features. If you have 10 PDF editor solutions in operation, however, you’ll need 10 different training sessions. That’s expensive. It’s also needlessly time-consuming.
Now imagine the expert team of end-user computing specialists from Workspace IT is on the case. After reviewing the software inventory or usage reports, they identify the software that can be removed without affecting your operations. The benefits are as impressive as they are tangible.
Why pay for five licenses when one covers all your users? Why use three FTP programs when one will do? You’re paying for software you simply don’t need. Get rid of it, and you can save a significant amount of money – improving your cash flow and freeing up capital for long-term investments in your business.
The more applications you have, the more vulnerabilities you have – it really is that simple. By drastically reducing the number of applications and software licences on your system, you drastically reduce the number of cyber threats you must contend with. Also, by streamlining your software environment, you make IT security and compliance a great deal easier, cheaper and more effective.
What happens when three people in your organisation are performing the same task using three different applications? Maybe nothing. However, there’s a chance that all three applications deliver very different results. Or, at the very least, they deliver results at different speeds.
Maybe some employees are confused about which application to use, so they use multiple options when only one will do. Switch to one software platform across your entire organisation, and you negate these potential issues and enhance productivity with minimal effort on your part.
When you have multiple applications running concurrently in your organisation, the logistics involved in training and onboarding everyone are mind-blowing. But when you whittle your software down to just one title, you can simplify and streamline your training processes – saving you time, money and a lot of headaches!
If everyone in your organisation uses a single application, the data and insights you get will be high-quality, reliable, and contemporaneous – and that’s a recipe for better-informed decision-making. Get rid of the noise and irrelevant metrics produced by having multiple applications running at once, and drill down on the data that really matters.
It stands to reason that collaborations between people and departments in an organisation are easier and more efficient when everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet. And by hymn sheet, we mean software application. You won’t need to call a meeting to discuss processes and communication methods every time you decide to collaborate if everyone is already using a particular tool from the outset.
You really can have it all: lower costs, better decision-making, optimised resource allocation, enhanced IT security, streamlined operational processes and more. All you need to do is embrace application usage tracking and the insights it delivers.
Here at Workspace IT, we perform detailed and rigorous software rationalisations to identify needless software waste. Our approach to application rationalisation that leaves no stone unturned in pursuit of software to optimise.
A full assessment of your organisation’s use of applications provides application rationalisation experts with a clear picture of how your users perform their duties. The software that goes unused or underutilised is then flagged for review. Recommendations are made as to which applications are essential to overall productivity and which can be discarded.
Applications that don’t receive regular updates and patches because they’re rarely used can jeopardise your entire system. Application rationalisation identifies these applications and assesses the security risks they represent. Using specialised software and a tried-and-tested process, IT specialists can identify unauthorised use of applications, policy violations and risks. To cut a long story short, this means a streamlined IT security process that’s easy to follow for all users.
Application usage is a vital part of your operational efficiency. More importantly, it has a direct and significant impact on your organisation’s cost base. All we need to get started is the output from your existing software inventory. By removing redundant apps, streamlining processes, and getting all your users singing from the same hymn sheet, you can make a positive difference to both the service you deliver and the health of your bottom line.
Want to save your business a small fortune on software waste and inappropriate or profligate application usage? Get in touch today for an initial consultation.
