For Business Process Professionals

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	December 18, 2006 Application Upgrades: When And Why How To Make Tough Decisions On Protecting Your Apps Investments by Paul D. Hamerman with Sharyn Leaver, R "Ray" Wang, Elisse Gaynor	Average: 8  (1 rating)

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Executive Summary

Organizations face agonizing decisions to upgrade, or not to upgrade, their enterprise applications. A big driver of these decisions is the vendor-imposed release support schedules, which require customers to upgrade within a five- to eight-year time frame. There are good reasons to upgrade, but the benefits are not always clear. Key reasons to upgrade include avoidance of compliance and technical risks, business benefits, and improved technology. Factors deterring and delaying upgrades include upgrade project costs, customizations, and business cycles and release maturity. To make complex upgrade decisions, Forrester recommends using a framework that takes into account the costs and project risks, along with the business benefits, risk avoidance, and flexibility.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Upgrades Are A Major Priority For Customers
• Why Your Applications Provider Wants You To Upgrade
• Use A Structured Decision Framework As A First Step
• Use TEI To Build A Detailed Business Case

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Upgrade To Protect Your Investment, Or Head For The Exit

WHAT IT MEANS

• Customer Attrition Will Increase, Along With SaaS Adoption
• Related Research Documents

This is an excerpt

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