Case Study: Barclays                          

Synopsis

Following a deal to outsource the majority of their IT operations, Barclays wished to identify, understand, map and rationalize applications (services) before committing to outsource redundant applications at huge cost. Barclays became aware that Application Portfolio Management (APM) was the tool they could use to control the cost and quality of this project and were able to utilize the Micro Focus APM solution to review and assess their application portfolio. Initial assessments indicated that the ROI once the solution had been implemented and rolled-out could be in the region of a 6:1 ratio.

The business drivers for Barclays in adopting this solution were to reduce the on-going cost of their application portfolio and pick off the ‘low hanging fruit’ to rationalize (i.e. 7 of their mortgage systems). They also wished to understand the scope of the outsource project potential with the aim of achieving the following:

• Determining which applications are relevant to the needs of the business and customer-base
• Analyzing the performance of these applications to gain insight into how they could be employed more effectively
• Becoming informed of what the application portfolio should be providing as a whole both currently and in the future
• Outsourcing all of their IT applications in the secure knowledge that their application portfolio was representative of the needs of the business and the demands of customers, whilst being able to predict (and therefore ask for feedback regarding) how the portfolio will continue to serve these needs in the future.
• Realizing significant cost reduction redeploying resource towards new development projects rather than utilizing this in maintenance and support of existing IT systems.