Organizations often focus on the “here and now” of activities, adopting a classic run-to-failure or reactive approach. However, they should consider the great correlation between business success and value in managing and evolving applications.

M odern companies depend heavily on their digital solutions.

These applications not only generate revenue, but are one of the best ways to connect with customers and across departments, increasing collaboration between people. Technology plays a key role, and takes on an increasingly central role.

Maximizing the effectiveness of an Application Maintenance service means paying attention to this vision.

The need to create value is therefore born, focusing on innovative and proactive services that create an approach to the “smart” service, for a management that ensures continuity.

Companies that take an evolutionary management approach are able to devote more time to value-generating activities and to prioritize resources more effectively, increasing the satisfaction of internal customers.

Not to be underestimated, even the financial aspect: in fact, the prerogative of a smart AM is to expand the content of the service, containing costs and allocating resources from the budget already set previously. By doing so, evolutionary developments that are usually considered capital expenditure (CAPEX), become operational (OPEX).

But application management is much more than specific skills and saving

A major responsibility of Cios is to translate business strategies into IT strategies, ready from a technological point of view.

Precisely for this reason, in order to generate business growth and innovation, it is necessary that they ensure that applications not only resist innovation, but that they accompany it.
Imagine that a digital price management solution crashes abnormally, just at an important time for the organization. The Cios face challenges of scalability, stability and security every day: the evolutionary vision is a choice that supports them in everyday life.
This service is defined as evolutionary in that it evolves with the strategy to make it connect with the technology, so that the IT is connected to the business.

Evolutionary maintenance: how to optimize it

The quality of durable applications is a must for Cios, regardless of the business, so as to make it a basis for growth.

But how can we optimize the evolution of applications?

To deal continuously with the partners that are dedicated to the application maintenance service. To ensure that the initial requirements are met, a resource could be dedicated to being the interface to be used for service development and management functions.
In addition, creating a team to deal with evolutionary developments and current management is a great way to anticipate problems that may arise.
In addition to the preventive aspect, the maintenance of evolutionary applications is crucial when the organization wants to focus on innovation to emerge and make a difference
Vendors update platforms with new features for users, and these must be implemented with existing infrastructure. Also in this case, communication is the key to success: scheduling useful meetings both from the point of view of functionality, and from the technological point of view related to periodic updates of versions, releases and patches (…) of infrastructure software.

Not only active maintenance, but proactive

Modern digital solutions are composed of multiple parts, working together: from the server, to the database, to the interface, to the analysis, each part is essential for success.
Doing tests and monitoring in a reactive way is no longer enough: you have to intervene before things go wrong.
However good a disaster strategy is, it is not the solution.
Identifying problems before end-users offers a significant advantage in solving them.
Proactivity must be born from a continuous tool monitoring, so that it can be easier to understand the origin of the problems that may arise and point to a relationship that totally cuts down the response times, making immediate and effective assistance.

The timely identification of system difficulties helps in predictions, continuously monitor the situation of applications helps to create a database from which to extract the historical points from which problems arose, to counter them quickly, adequately and effectively.

How to improve proactive maintenance?

A good rule is to share a calendar of the most critical moments for the company and in which Slas must be extended (high availability time frames). In this regard it is essential to form teams dedicated to support with technological and business skills, involving senior resources.
Developing an automatic monitoring tool that signals the most critical processes based on historical data, is definitely an approach that binds to this vision.
In fact, this practice transfers information directly to the “focal point” in order to free up IT, so that it can engage in higher-level activities.

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