Applications Priorities 2024

Five Applications Priorities for 2024

In this report, we explore five priorities for emerging and leading-edge technologies and practices that can improve on the capabilities needed to meet the ambitions of your organization.

Digital Experience
Deliver valuable user, customer, employee, and brand experiences

Democratized AI
Extend AI access to everyone in your organization

Predictive Solution Management
Predict, prevent, and mitigate solution issues before they happen

Multisource Ecosystems
Manage a mutually beneficial ecosystem composed of internally and externally managed solutions and partners

Intelligent Solution Delivery
Embed AI into your solution delivery practice

Align your applications priorities to your business goals and objectives

Applications are critical components in any business strategic plan. They can directly influence an organization's:

• Ability to be dynamic, flexible, and responsive to changing expectations, business conditions, and technologies.
• Value proposition, branding, and reputation in the industry through unique, competitive, and innovative products and services.

Therefore, business leaders are continuously looking for innovative ways to better position their application portfolios to satisfy their goals and objectives; this is done through applications priorities. Given the scope and costs involved, these priorities must be carefully crafted to clearly state achievable business outcomes that satisfy the different needs of diverse groups of customers, stakeholders, and users.

Today's business applications are good but leave room for improvement.

78%
Average customer satisfaction score for the software industry
Source: Fullview, 2023

Address your applications disruptors

What we are facing today is transforming the ways in which we work, live, and relate to one another. Applications teams and portfolios MUST change to meet this reality.

• Democratized IT: Organizations want the ability to build, configure, and extend their own products and services without traditional IT restrictions. It is estimated that no-code (a popular approach to empower the organization with IT capabilities) will account for more than 65% of application development activity by 2024 (Codeless, 2023).
• Small budget allocated for growth: Many organizations (60% of respondents) are expecting their IT budget to at least slightly increase in 2024 (n=506). Despite the expected growth in their budget, respondents estimate only 33% of that budget is allocated to growth and innovation (Flexera, 2023).
• Exponential growth of technologies: Modern and desirable technologies are growing and maturing at such a fast pace that IT is often struggling to verify and validate their fit and value. ChatGPT, for example, launched in November 2022 and became the technology with the fastest adoption with 100 million monthly active users in January 2023 (Reuters, 2023).
• Security: IT is expected to keep up to date on the latest security issues and vulnerabilities, but the increased sophistication and volume of attack vectors are overwhelming. Zero-day vulnerabilities in applications and operating systems, software supply chain vulnerabilities, and misconfigured systems (server workloads, cloud services, network security controls, etc.) were the top three most concerning threat vulnerabilities stated by respondents (Splunk, 2023).

Strengthen your foundations to better support your applications priorities

These key capabilities are imperative to the success of your applications priorities.

PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT
Easily attainable and insightful measurements to gauge the progress of meeting strategic objectives and goals (KPIs) and the performance of individual teams, practices, and processes (metrics).

BUSINESS ALIGNMENT
An accurate understanding and interpretation of stakeholder, end-user, and customer expectations and priorities. These define the success of business products and services by considering the priorities of individual business units and teams.

EFFICIENT DELIVERY & SUPPORT PRACTICE
Software delivery and support roles, processes, and tools are collaborative, well equipped and resourced, and optimized to meet changing stakeholder expectations.

DATA MANAGEMENT & GOVERNANCE
Ensuring data is continuously reliable and trustworthy. Data structure and integrations are defined, governed, and monitored.

PRODUCT & SERVICE OWNERSHIP
A complete inventory and rationalization of the product and service portfolio, prioritized backlogs, roadmaps, and clear product and service ownership with good governance. This capability helps ensure your portfolio is optimized to meet its goals and objectives.