Cost & Complexity of Duplicate Systems/Applications

Most of us may think that cost of having duplicate systems/applications that provide same/similar functionality is an IT cost. While -for most part- IT cost is visible, there are far more cost repercussions across an organization these duplicate systems can cause. These issues not only impact internal departments but also external parties that have a stake in the company such as customers and shareholders.

Let’s look at some of these groups that are impacted by such duplicate systems/applications/platforms:

Customers: It becomes difficult for customers to assess a company’s abilities and service level agreements as those depend on which system/application is being offered.

Sales: Sales department needs to keep track of features and functionality of multiple systems and it becomes confusing and cumbersome when they explain services to clients and can come across as inefficient.

Marketing: Marketing and proposal teams have a hard time estimating work effort in responding to RFPs(Request for Proposals) and will need to spend more time deciding which platform/application/system should be offered to the client.

Account Management: Account management needs to keep track of multiple systems and which client is using what system, what are the short-comings of each of these systems and it results in lot of effort and time to keep clients up-to-date and serve them well.

Operations: Operations team will need to train their staff on how to use multiple systems and can’t provide the same level of operational SLAs to all clients as some clients may be still on older systems/applications.

IT: Of course IT is hard hit in maintaining multiple systems. IT costs continue to rise where there is no apparent revenue increase, older systems are harder to maintain due to technology changes. It is difficult to find support resources that are familiar with older technologies and programming languages.

Shareholders: All of above mentioned issues certainly result in decreased shareholder value.

Apart from above challenges, all departments spend a significant amount of time in reconciling multiple systems, as a result, even end-up building systems that are aimed at just reconciling and keeping them in sync. This results in spaghetti style workflows, complex data flows and application interfaces that make consolidation and integration more difficult and the downward spiral unfolds.

Large scale efforts to application consolidation can’t be done by IT alone since it is not just an IT challenge but a challenge for all departments throughout an organization. Lack of long term strategy and consistent support for these consolidation and integration efforts, these systems will become a larger liability to the company and can drag all departments down.

What kind of issues do you face at your workplace due to duplicate systems and/or platforms? How did you or propose to resolve them?. Please share your thoughts.