THE BUSINESS ISSUE

The lion's share of IT service resources are dedicated to maintaining existing applications rather than to developing new ones. Furthermore, security and high availability of applications, compounded by new regulatory requirements and application modernization needs, are critical to the success of companies today. Clearly, there is a strong argument for installing the right tools to handle these issues proactively by automating change process.

IT departments rarely find themselves without business-critical projects that need attention. On the contrary, the workload for most teams seems to continually increase. This is especially true if the IT staff has been downsized. For this reason, IT management needs to not just cut costs, but also spend what money they do have wisely. Investment in automation change process tools such as ALM can help IT staff members work faster and more efficiently so that projects can be completed on time and within budget.

THE ARCAD APPROACH

Application Lifecycle Management tools automate, track, and streamline the entire lifecycle of your application changes from the initial request for a change, through analysis, development, and testing, to deployment of changes to your production servers. Many IT shops already have some sort of automated process or tool in place to manage parts of the ALM process. Certainly with Sarbanes-Oxley and other audit requirements, most public companies have had to implement ALM solutions, such as change management, whether through in-house processes or with third-party tools. However, when it comes to ALM, most shops have only a piece of the puzzle in place. Very few have implemented tools that can help automate and simplify the entire ALM process.

ARCAD Software’s goal is to help our customers automate and streamline the development process and to secure their software assets. These goals are important in the best market conditions, but are increasingly important when businesses have fewer budget and employees to complete important IT projects.

ADVANTAGES

As you can see, introducing solutions to automate the application lifecycle can significantly reduce costs associated with application changes. Developers will be able to work faster and more efficiently, and production errors that can cause costly downtime are far less likely. For the business, this means that IT projects are more apt to be completed on time and on budget, even if staffing has been reduced due to economic conditions.

While financial savings is great, many other positive benefits come from automating your development process with ARCAD’s ALM solutions.

For example, audit regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley require that development and testing be managed in a tightly controlled process. More and more, auditors are recommending similar development processes to businesses that are not subject to such regulations because they see the benefits of these controls. In addition to appeasing auditors, IT managers can gain a better view into the development process, workloads, and project statuses. Finally, introducing ALM tools can help businesses implement "best practices" that are key as your IT goals evolve.