Maximising ROI Through Application Rationalisation: Optimising Costs For Software Licenses And Subscriptions

In our previous article on cloud and data centre cost optimisation strategies, we explored the changing landscape of hosting, ranging from traditional on-premises data centres to multi-tenanted cloud environments, and recommended how to optimise infrastructure costs.

In this article, we shift our focus to what is hosted on that infrastructure: business applications. These applications, crucial to an organisation's day-to-day operations, often represent a significant portion of IT spend, especially in software licenses and subscriptions. Major software packages, such as Salesforce, SAP, and others, increasingly promote their proprietary cloud platforms, making it even more complex to manage and rationalise the application estate. This creates challenges in comparing costs by category, as different pricing models and services apply, and integrating a growing number of applications into a cohesive IT landscape.