Research reveals over half of IT Directors unsure how many applications on their estate

With application ownership and governance issues often put to the side in a rush to introduce new infrastructure, 53% of CIOs (Chief Information Officers) and ITDs (IT Directors) are unable to confirm exactly how many applications were running on their estate.

  • 3 months ago Posted in

Camwood, a leading IT consultancy specialising in digital evolution through the lens of applications, reveals that over half (53%) of IT Directors and CIOs were unable to state exactly how many applications were running across their estate.

The problem arises as organisations grow, and the number of applications used across the estate also grows. Even when companies have a robust application strategy, it is extremely common to have multiple application versions in production, along with various complex licensing agreements. This can result in a haphazard customer experience because each application version has its own support requirements and different features.

The challenges and risks to companies of an untamed estate include application bloating, Shadow IT and security. Typically, a third of all cyber attacks are a result of vulnerabilities in Shadow IT, which puts extreme pressure on IT departments to continually operate an effective application audit process.

To mitigate this risk, it is critical for businesses to perform application life-cycle management from within the IT function. Often this task is either overlooked or not undertaken continuously, potentially resulting in higher costs, and greater exposure to cyber attacks.

According to Andrew Carr, Managing Director of Camwood, “Applications need to be treated more strategically, because IT departments have to keep the enterprise secure, and applications with no clear ownership are most likely to present clear security risks.”

In particular, ignoring the proliferation of unsupported applications creates problems later on when companies want to initiate digital acceleration programmes, impacting agility and harming growth.

“Shadow IT is a large problem with serious consequences. To deal with it, organisations must first identify the applications via an audit. It’s a valuable process, because understanding what’s out there and rationalising the estate will harden security, reduce the volume of applications by 40% and typically reduce ongoing spend by 30%,” Carr comments.

Application management takes care of the complexity of software lifecycle management, including how the application operates, performance optimisation, maintenance, testing, version control and upgrade paths. Along with significant cost savings, application management delivers reduced downtime and an enhanced end-user experience.

Given the increasing risk profile that Shadow IT involves both for security and for delaying business initiatives, Carr advises companies to consider taking steps to rationalise their IT estate. “Companies need to think about applications today, by prioritising application management, to avoid security issues and spiralling costs tomorrow. You can’t migrate what you don’t know, and you can’t modernise what you can’t quantify,” he explains.


Salesforce is migrating more than 200,000 systems from CentOS Linux to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, building on the world’s leading enterprise Linux platform to streamline IT operations and enhance customer experiences.
Available in the Now Platform Vancouver release, Now Assist integrates generative AI designed to accelerate productivity, improve experiences, and increase agility.
Control-M accelerates hybrid and multi-cloud application and data workflows into production with new cloud services integrations.
OVHcloud now provides its IaaS customers with a carbon calculator aimed at giving them monthly reports on their cloud-related carbon emission.
69% of ITDMs agree that the growth in remote work has made their jobs harder and more complex.
With 88% of IT leaders re-evaluating cloud spending, on-premise infrastructure remains sticky as IT leaders encounter widespread business challenges.
New research finds there is huge potential for AI to transform enterprise operations, but a lack of understanding is the number one barrier to business adoption.
Siemens launches study of 1,400 executives globally revealing regional, city and industry insights regarding the infrastructure transition across energy systems, mobility and buildings.