Making smarter decisions about your application portfolio is critical. Your tech stack is a corporate asset that requires governance and refinement. Future fit technology executives know there is a right way to optimize your portfolio to remain modern and economically sound. Whether your organization is in the red or the black, now is a good time to reduce, modernize, and redistribute your tech stack. Leading approaches to tech optimization think holistically about all elements of the technology portfolio and balance three key initiatives (as shown in the figure below):

  • Get lean. Tech execs must build better teams and eliminate waste, think differently about service partners, and manage IT and business operations skills and organizational placement. Leaders must dismantle siloes and short-term structures that have outlived their purpose and eliminate other redundant efforts that aren’t generating the right business outcomes and experiences.
  • Get organized. Getting organized requires establishing sustainable processes, tools, and organizational structures to make tech stack optimization an ongoing, iterative process and ensure that new purchases do not distract from these goals.
  • Get moving. Tech execs should make reducing complexity and creating business value top priorities so that you can deliver products and services quickly, create transparency, and innovate faster.

While top technology executives aren’t expected to be well versed in the granular details of implementation, you are the decision authority and should review the approach and frameworks with your technology leaders responsible for these efforts. Tech executives are expected to:

  • Ensure that optimization initiatives go beyond cost efficiency and include growth and innovation business outcomes.
  • Articulate and champion the short- and long-term benefits.
  • Approve and prioritize the necessary investment and community sourcing for these efforts.

Within the Technology Executives service of Forrester Decisions, Optimize Your Tech Stack And Services is a collection of best practices and tools for tech executives to develop and deliver the right business strategies. Throughout your leadership journey, you will encounter retention, replatforming, and reimagining decisions as a business priority. The future direction is to have a proactive approach in place that manages the life span of technologies, delivers forward-thinking business value, and controls technical obsolescence.

Interested in hearing more? Reach out to inquiry@forrester.com and schedule time with an analyst to explore further.

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In this Forrester Decisions service priority, we balance innovation and growth opportunities while providing ways to improve agility, adaptability, resilience, and costs across hardware, software, and partner services. The service includes case studies and benchmarks for peer comparison and assessment. Access Forrester Research to lead the way and influence your success.