How do you know your technology investments are fueling growth, and not draining your organization's efficiencies?
The big challenges for today's IT organizations are identifying where to invest, when to optimize, and how to maximize their ROI. The best solution is to align assets and applications with business strategies to optimize technology spending at every level. This will help organizations invest in the right initiatives/projects, reduce IT expenses, enhance productivity, and drive success.
This is where ServiceNow Application Portfolio Management (APM) plays a key role. With its strategic, portfolio-driven methods, ServiceNow APM gets your technology investment back on track, addressing technology waste directly. It allows organizations to analyze and optimize their application portfolio with centralized visibility, optimizing performance, lowering costs, and aligning data-driven decisions with key business priorities.
In this article, we'll explore how ServiceNow APM transforms and simplifies the project management lifecycle to optimize technology spend.
The Need for Optimizing Technology Spend in 2025
Before we discuss how ServiceNow APM boosts technology spend, let's first look at why IT cost optimization is mandatory for today's modern businesses.
As businesses grow, so does the complexity of technology. Organizations need to expand their existing IT infrastructure, including software, hardware, and business applications, to scale with growing business requirements. Poor alignment of applications and assets will lead to incomplete visibility, operational silos, inaccurate process management, and lower revenues.
Here are a few other challenges with poor application portfolio management.
- Unnecessary maintenance & support costs as well as hardware assistance for inefficient applications.
- Poor systems integration leads to misaligned production processes and inconsistent product quality.
- Unsupported or redundant software causes potential security vulnerabilities and unnecessary costs.
Therefore, technology cost optimization strategies help companies realize the true potential of their assets or apps, transforming IT operational challenges into cost-saving opportunities. With advanced application monitoring and tracking features, ServiceNow APM helps you evaluate what you have and how to maximize the value from it.
ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM): Plan better strategies and simplify your processes to optimize business outcomes.
5 Quick Wins for Technology Cost Optimization with ServiceNow APM
Through a unified, future-proof, five-step maturity level, companies can maximize value by automating and optimizing project lifecycle management, from decision to action.
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Comprehensive Application Inventory
ServiceNow APM's consolidated interface helps organizations visualize their applications on a single, centralized dashboard. The dashboard provides explicit information about each application, such as how it gets used, how it adds value, and where it is in its lifecycle. With this real-time visibility into applications, businesses can determine which ones are:
- Value-added apps: Essential apps that contribute to growth and productivity.
- Costly to maintain: Overpriced applications with high maintenance costs.
- Underutilized or redundant: Apps that are either not being used to their full potential or overlap with other solutions.
These insights help organizations evaluate the status of each application and make data-driven decisions to reduce operational costs.
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Application Rationalization
One of the key features of ServiceNow APM is application rationalization. This feature allows organizations to assess whether to invest, migrate, replace, or retire applications. With ServiceNow APM, businesses can:
- Retire redundant apps: Identify and neutralize apps that provide low value or overlap with other solutions in your portfolio.
- Consolidate similar apps: Group similar apps together to reduce licensing fees and streamline operations.
- Upgrade legacy applications: Replace outdated applications with more efficient, modern alternatives that provide better value and performance.
These insights will help organizations make more informed investment decisions and reinvest them in areas that truly drive business value.
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Capability Mapping with Data-Driven Insights
ServiceNow APM maps applications with business capabilities, providing a streamlined direction to companies on where to invest, what to reduce, and how to optimize. By evaluating the application's performance, costs, and value, APM breaks bottlenecks across business process management. This includes:
- Prioritize applications: Investment in the right applications that align with business goals.
- Remove low-value apps: Eliminate inefficient or redundant apps, saving costs.
- Mitigate Risks: Detect security vulnerabilities or identify underperforming apps, avoiding risks.
This transparent, single data model process helps organizations better plan long-term IT strategies, allowing them to continuously optimize their technology spend.
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Digital Integrations and Transparency
ServiceNow APM's digital integrations allow companies to manage their complete integration landscape through a centralized dashboard. This feature manages secure data flows and has complete governance over a single interface, reducing operational overheads.
- Integration Management: Create, update, or delete integrations as per business requirements.
- CI Relationships: Build Configuration Item (CI) relationship links to enable secure visibility and access to integrations between applications.
- Seamless Data Exchange: Exchange data with each other, improving communications and productivity.
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Cost Transparency & Budgeting
ServiceNow APM offers deep insights into the costs associated with each application, including licensing, support, infrastructure, and operational costs. With these insights, companies can:
- Control Costs: Gain a clear picture of how much each application costs to operate over time.
- Optimize budget allocation: Reallocate capital assigned for underperforming applications to high-value initiatives.
- Forecast future: Predict the cost of future upgrades of apps, allowing organizations to plan budgets more effectively.
The Bottom Line
“Maximize ROI With V-Soft's ServiceNow APM Expertise!”
Any investment that is not aligned with your organization's goals and does not lead to success is not valuable. Blending the potentialities of ServiceNow SPM, ServiceNow APM, and ServiceNow ITSM together, V-Soft creates a well-organized IT environment where assets and applications are consolidated, communicated, and tracked to maximize value.
Let your technology investment work smarter for you. Talk to our ServiceNow experts!
FAQs
How does ServiceNow APM connect with other IT processes?
ServiceNow APM integrates ITSM, ITAM, and SPM to ensure a connected ecosystem of IT applications, playing a key role in minimizing tech costs across the enterprise.
What are ServiceNow APM implementation first steps for cost optimization?
Begin with application catalog establishment, identify underutilizing and poor-performing apps and map them with budget planning all while focusing on compliance and governance processes.
Can ServiceNow APM support future technology plans and budgeting?
Yes, ServiceNow APM provides data-driven insights that help organizations predict future IT investments, allowing for better budgeting and resource planning.
Can ServiceNow APM perform Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) calculations?
Yes, ServiceNow APM provides visibility into application costs and value it generated, allowing easier calculation of the application portfolio's TCO.
How does ServiceNow APM enhance the Return on Investment (ROI) in IT?
By identifying high-value applications and optimizing the portfolio, APM maintains investments aligned with business objectives, pushing ROI to its maximum level.
Does ServiceNow APM eliminate wasteful technology cost?
Yes, ServiceNow APM identifies redundant applications, transforming unnecessary technology costs into cost saving opportunities.
What is the difference between APM, PPM, and SPM?
APM focuses on the architecture of business applications, whereas PPM is involved in managing the entire project portfolio. On the other hand, SPM is a business portfolio-driven. It effectively plans, categorizes, and manages strategic priorities that align business objectives to optimize outcomes and meet customer needs faster.
