Remove hidden waste

Do you understand your applications estate? Are application costs spiralling and you don’t feel in control. If this is the case, then you’re not alone.

The continued drive to improve public services by fast-tracking digital transformation and shifting towards a more modern operating model has never been more important. But this must be carefully balanced with tight IT budgets. Increasingly, local authority IT departments are being asked to do more with less. As a result, councils must use a data-driven, organisation-wide approach to change to identify and eliminate hidden waste.

Minimise shadow IT

Application rationalisation is a vital step in modernisation. Large organisations with legacy infrastructures often have application portfolios containing redundant tools and outdated systems. This leads to unnecessary overspending. It’s common for multiple teams to pay for and use different applications that perform the same function, while some tools that are no longer being used are still being paid for. Without a clear IT strategy that provides visibility into the approved tools and cloud-based services, employees are also more likely to adopt their own unauthorised and unvetted technologies. Consequently, this increases the risk of shadow IT.

Moving beyond established systems

Traditionally, councils have operated on four or five large applications. Many of these systems have been in place for years. Over time, their purpose has become less clear and the original problems they were intended to solve have become less relevant. In the past, it’s been difficult for councils to move beyond a small number of long-established systems. This is partly due to legacy practices, but also, restrictive government procurement frameworks. These limit the amount of choice and agency local authorities have. By constraining options, a small number of suppliers have more control.

Step one – centralise the data

Teams need to become more agile, data driven and forward thinking. The first step is to create a centralised list of contracts and licenses to inform an up-to-date contract management system. All information is migrated here from those legacy platforms. This provides a strategic, organisation-wide perspective, which teams can act on to cut costs.

For example, the IT department can encourage staff to:

  • adopt the same applications already in use in the business, rather than procuring new ones
  • delete costly software which isn’t being used
  • ensure the apps they are paying for are fit for purpose

To action this strategy effectively, teams will need to investigate each application, understand what problem it’s trying to fix and what the end users’ requirements are. In doing so, they will be able to make the right decision and deploy the correct strategy. Any policies put in place will need to be reviewed at regular intervals to continue weeding out unused applications.

When deploying new IT policies, organisations should also look out for overly configured applications. Often, their features will have been tweaked and tailored over time to fit specific needs. Enforcing change can be more difficult in cases where councils have adapted applications to make them highly tailored to internal processes. Subsequently, teams will need to tackle this to deploy an organisation-wide strategy effectively.

Step two – cost saving options

When exploring cost saving options, IT teams at local authorities should also consider building their own tools within their existing environments. For example, most councils already use the Microsoft ecosystem, within which low-code solutions exist that allow non-developers to build simple applications.

Step three – develop a policy to keep change in place

When developing an IT strategy for application rationalisation, contract management is key. Therefore, local authorities need to avoid automatic renewals on application contracts. Instead they should continually assess their software portfolio. Rather than only engaging with suppliers at the last minute, when a contract is about to expire, discussions should take place earlier. This means councils can agree improved terms or better align renewal decisions with their rationalisation goals.

As with any new workplace initative, the success of an application rationalisation strategy will hinge on people. Behavioural change can be hard to implement as internal teams may have an emotional connection to applications they’ve used for a long time. While strategic business decisions need to be based on a clear set of priorities and goals, rather than emotions, remembering that people are at the heart of every organisation is vital.

Expert advisers should be consulted to ensure workers are comfortable and confident with change at every stage. This can be achieved through a clear communications plan. Alongside this, a training programme should upskill and support colleagues to ensure they don’t revert to old practices. To help guarantee team members, and the wider organisation keep on top of new initiatives, governance and processes need to be put in place. By establishing, continually checking and reaffirming rules, roles, and decision-making structures, teams can make sure IT systems are managed effectively over time. If an overriding startegy is not put in place, there is a risk that in five years’, teams will have to repeat the exercise.