Overview
The desire to stay ahead of the competition drives companies to offer new services to customers and price pressure compels them to look for ways to reduce operational costs. IT departments constantly look for new applications to address those business needs. As businesses evolve, applications are added to meet new requirements and over time, the company finds itself saddled with many disparate applications. It is estimated that organizations that have been in business for just a decade are likely to have hundreds of legacy applications and spend more than 75% of their IT budget on maintaining them.
One of the goals of Application Portfolio Management (APM) is to align IT with evolving business initiatives.
Our PrizmTM is a hosted Web-based APM tool that creates an inventory of enterprise IT assets based on their number, type and health attributes. Prizm’s inbuilt financial modeling capabilities facilitate sophisticated TCO and ROI analyses of each application in the portfolio to enable informed portfolio optimization decisions. Using PrizmTM , IT departments can maximize the business value of their applications portfolio.
PrizmTM’s approach to APM focuses on IT objects, including applications, databases, servers and more. IT objects are judged based on their intrinsic characteristics and non-functional attributes, such as scalability and business value.
- Reduced Time for Asset Discovery: PrizmTM imports information, if available, from Excel sheets, CMDB and ITSM solutions to quickly create a baseline. The subsequent capture of information is incremental and Prizm automates this by linking with the change management process. Using available information reduces the time and effort required to create the asset inventory. Inventory creation in Prizm combines automated information gathering with a template-based manual approach. Templates that capture Business Criticality, Technology Complexity, Level of Integration and Complexity of Maintenance can be created dynamically.
- Dependency Mapping: PrizmTM generates interface diagrams that show interdpendencies among applications, as well as dependencies on servers, databases, external entities and more. Knowledge of dependencies helps in understanding the impact of enhancing, migrating or decommissioning applications.
- Business Function to Application Mapping: PrizmTM captures functional needs and maps them to applications to identify the Functional Quality (FQ) for each application. Duplicated functions are highlighted in the process. This facilitates the decision-making for portfolio rationalization by identifying those applications that need to be retained and those that can be merged or retired when the enterprise migrates to a standardized application environment.
- Business Process to Asset-level Drill Down: Users can drill down from process to asset level, enabling them to perform end-to-end portfolio health monitoring. PrizmTM makes it possible to drill down into business processes to associated assets such as applications, servers or databases. Enhanced visibility empowers business and IT alike by identifying the right areas for improvement and focus.
- Portfolio Cost Management: A cluster analysis feature provides a flexible and dynamic breakup of cost based on Business Unit, IT Organization structure, Type of Technology, Location, IT Manager, etc.. IT departments can get a clear picture of support and maintenance costs, enhancement costs, license costs and so on, to identify the specific cost centers that need attention.
- Asset Lifecycle Management: PrizmTM integrates with industry-standard Project Portfolio Management (PPM) solutions such as HP-PPM and CA’s Clarity through their web services. This feature facilitates end-to-end asset lifecycle management, enabling IT departments to act on identified changes by initiating a change request for evaluation and approval.
Companies spend a majority of their IT budgets on application maintenance. APM gives them insight into which applications are providing value and which are expenditure black holes. Therefore, APM tools should be flexible enough to capture the complexity of business and map the maintenance cost of each application to its return.
PrizmTM has been used by the world’s leading non-asset-based supply chain and solutions provider to identify redundant applications in their portfolio. The supply chain provider was able to optimize its application portfolio by 60%, resulting in a 20% reduction in maintenance costs. Another HCLTech client, a large media house in the US, used Prizm to discover a 40% reduction in its applications.
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Frequently Asked Questions about Application Portfolio Management
Our application portfolio management tool is called Prizm™. It is a hosted, web-based solution that gives IT leaders a complete inventory view of enterprise IT assets—sorted by number, type and health. Prizm™ also delivers integrated financial modeling for TCO and ROI analysis, supporting smarter, data-driven optimization decisions across your entire portfolio.
Yes. Prizm™ generates detailed interface diagrams that map dependencies across applications, servers, databases and third-party systems. This visibility is essential before making any infrastructure change—you see the full downstream impact before acting. We built this capability specifically so IT teams can move confidently, avoiding costly disruptions caused by unexpected dependency conflicts.
Prizm™'s cluster analysis feature breaks costs down by Business Unit, IT Org structure, Technology Type, Location, IT Manager and more. Support, maintenance, enhancement and licensing fees are all surfaced clearly. This granularity helps portfolio managers pinpoint exactly where cost-reduction efforts will deliver the greatest impact—turning broad budget conversations into precise, actionable decisions.
A global supply chain and solutions provider used Prizm™ to eliminate redundant applications, achieving a 60% portfolio optimization while cutting maintenance costs by 20%. These results reflect what we consistently see when organizations gain true visibility into their application landscape—significant waste is uncovered and eliminated, freeing budget for higher-value strategic investments.
Yes, Prizm™ supports end-to-end portfolio health monitoring, letting you navigate from high-level business processes all the way down to individual assets like applications, servers or databases. Both business and IT stakeholders get the granularity they need. This is what modern IT business service management looks like—complete transparency, no guesswork and alignment across teams.
Prizm™ accelerates discovery by importing data directly from Excel, CMDB and ITSM tools, establishing a baseline inventory fast. Dynamic templates categorize assets by Business Criticality, Technology Complexity, Integration Level and Maintenance Complexity, eliminating manual guesswork. As your environment evolves, ongoing data capture integrates seamlessly with your change management processes, keeping everything up to date without extra effort.
Prizm™ uses business function application mapping to link each application to specific business needs and assess its Functional Quality. When multiple applications serve the same function, Prizm™ automatically flags them as duplicates. This makes rationalization decisions straightforward—your teams can clearly see what to keep, consolidate or retire, accelerating your path to a leaner, more efficient portfolio.
Absolutely. Prizm™ integrates with leading project portfolio management solutions—including HP-PPM and CA Clarity—via web services. This means your teams manage the full asset lifecycle within a connected ecosystem, including submitting and tracking change requests directly in the tool. We designed this integration to eliminate silos and keep portfolio governance streamlined and efficient.
A US-based media giant reduced their application footprint by 40% using Prizm™. By gaining clear visibility into which applications were delivering value and which were quietly draining resources, their leadership could make confident decisions about rationalization. This kind of result demonstrates why application portfolio management is essential for any large organization serious about IT efficiency and cost discipline.
Prizm™ evaluates IT assets using both technical and non-functional attributes. Beyond standard technical traits, it assesses factors like scalability, business value, Business Criticality, Technology Complexity, Integration Level and Maintenance Complexity. This balanced approach ensures decisions are grounded in real-world operational context—not just raw technical data—delivering genuinely actionable insights for portfolio optimization.
