What do ERP fatigue, instance consolidation, upgrades, SaaS, third party-maintenance, and BPO have in common? They are all stop-gap measures in addressing the key issue of having a long-term apps strategy.

Some key areas to consider include:

• Most packaged apps were bought in the mid to late 1990's
• Software lifecycle is about 7 to 10 years and we are entering a new upgrade replacement cycle
• Large demand for small projects skirt the real issue of a need for a packaged application strategy
• Architectural renewal via SOA and adoption of Web 2.0 functionality driving interest

As we move into one of the biggest upgrade cycles in a decade, enterprises should take the time to design a top-down view of their apps strategy before committing project budgets. A high-level view of the key components of this strategy include:

• Long term vendor strategy and management
• Packaged applications internal inventory
• Maintenance and support schedules
• Upgrade strategy
• Instance consolidation strategy
• Deployment option analysis (SaaS, Hosting, BPO, or On-premise)
• Change management readiness
• Business process maturity
• Custom development requirements
• Hardware/data center migration plan

(The personal contents in this blog do not reflect the opinions, ideas, thoughts, points of view, and any other potential attribution of my current, past, or future employers.)
Copyrighted 2007 by R Wang. All rights reserved