How closely do you monitor the number of purchased applications in use in your organization? If there are too many, how do you determine which apps to keep and which ones to cut?
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We run scans to determine which applications (installed, cloud) are in use to evaluate their merits, risks, costs, and utility. We are early on this journey, and I would be interested in hearing from others on the types of processes and/or solutions that you are employing to combat this challenge!
While you have specified "Purchased Applications", you should look at the Application landscape as a whole - a siloed view will limit the value for you. Assuming you have an existing blackbox or mess of applications, you will need to fix it first.
Fix Existing:
1. Perform a full review of all Purchased applications & build an inventory collating key aspects of each application. This is best done by pulling data from different teams. Apart from the core IT teams, get data from the Software Asset Mgmt team & the Procurement team. The first will ensure that all deployed applications are captured automatically & the latter will capture applications that you pay for (or if you have history - that you have paid for). When you do this, you will probably find gaps even in your SAM & Procurement inventories :)
2. Then group Applications by their Business Purpose, Core Functionality etc. to identify duplicates & overlaps.
3. Eliminating or converging applications should be based on a variety of factors incl, but not limited to ongoing cost, business value, user stickiness, obsolescence, transition costs etc. This can be tricky & needs sponsorship to implement. But even if this is not done well, the first 2 steps will set the base for transparency & future correction.
Most orgs use a ops consulting firm for this, but I would recommend against it. The consulting firms just ask your org teams to share the data & provide you an analysis based of that. Unless you have a dearth of good analytical minds in-house, I would recommend this be an in-house exercise, so that you capture the nuances & are able to follow through.
Way Forward:
Update the Procurement process SOP & Program budget approval process to include a mandatory check on existing inventory & related flows (approve / reject / exception etc.). This will prevent new redundancies / wastage and even in the case exceptions, atleast keep your inventory current.
Additionally, it's good practice do a monthly SAM based comparison to check that your App Inventory is current
Happy App Hunting !!
We monitor our application portfolio very closely—both from a cost and a productivity standpoint. In an SMB, every dollar counts, and tool sprawl can quietly drain resources, create integration challenges, and confuse users.
We track app usage through three key lenses:
Adoption and Usage Metrics: We rely on analytics from identity providers, license utilization reports, and endpoint monitoring to see which tools are actively used—and by whom.
Business Value Alignment: Every app must tie back to a clear outcome. It goes under review if it’s not directly contributing to revenue generation, operational efficiency, compliance, or customer experience.
Redundancy Checks: We regularly assess overlap across tools. For example, if three apps offer similar project management features, we evaluate user feedback, integration fit, and cost-to-value to consolidate.
The decision to cut or keep is collaborative. I engage business stakeholders, not just IT, because the goal is to simplify, not disrupt. In one instance, we sunsetted five apps, consolidated functionality into two platforms, and saved in annual SaaS spend, while improving user satisfaction.
It’s not about buying new tools or cutting tools. It’s about keeping the right ones.
We have a screening process in place where a group of people review and approve all requests. This is managed by architecture team, but includes security, finance and legal reviews. This inbound process also gets the application into our portfolio management system. We run reports and monitor this on a monthly basis. We look at things like underlying technology and upgrade deadlines. We are currently updating the process to put more control into the IT organization to push back on redundant applications.
And as a safety net, we have a relationship with our procurement organization, and they contact us anytime that a request is made to pay for any software.
I might be the 'hot take', but I don't know if there can be 'too many'.
To me this like managing a stock portfolio: I can own several stocks in the same sector if they are all worthy investments. To put it in a more IT-centric framing: Any application needs to provide net measurable value to its audience(s). 'Net measurable valuable' means its value is objectively measured, and greater than the costs involved in maintaining it.
From that cost perspective, there are two aspects of portfolio governance that are crucial:
Financial (TCO): If the audience(s) are getting more value than the costs involved (licensing, administration, etc.) than the tool is worthy of the portfolio.
Security: If the company's data is being protected in accordance with compliance and policy demands, the solution is viable.
To me, other governance mechanisms tend become 'high-cost legislation' that don't necessarily yield any tangible value other than increasing business drag and reducing the size of the portfolio. They become sledgehammers on finishing nails.