Retire the applications your strategy doesn't need

Sound familiar?

Thousands of applications and a shared belief that nothing can be switched off. Every system has an owner who needs it, an architect who says it can't go without a replacement, and a maintenance line that renews every year. More systems are launched than retired, so complexity only grows, and with it the cost of every change you want to make.

What we do

T.I.M.E.4 Simplicity is our extension of the standard Tolerate, Invest, Migrate, Eliminate method. The difference is in Eliminate, which we split four ways: planned and funded, unplanned and unfunded, elimination challenge, and consolidate. The elimination challenge is where the results come from. Each application owner is asked to state, in cost and usage terms, what their system is worth. Many find, as one owner at a global bank told us, that they never knew what the system cost until they had to explain its value.

We run the process on the tools you already have. We build the tracking so that every saving is booked, not assumed. And we leave a mechanism, not a list, so retirements continue after we have gone.

What it has produced

At a large global bank, 1,000 candidates identified from a portfolio of 3,000, 533 applications decommissioned and $12M a year in licence spend removed, on a $500,000 engagement: 24 times the fee. Application rationalisation at a large global bank →

The consolidation programme that followed delivered $102M. Technology cost optimisation at a large global bank →

How we'd start

With your application inventory and whatever cost data exists, however rough. In the first month we classify the portfolio and name the first elimination challenge cohort. From there it runs in quarterly waves, each one booked before the next begins.