Don't Just Maintain Business Applications — Raise Business Responsiveness

Application development and delivery (AD&D) pros need a continuous improvement strategy to update, enhance, and maintain business applications, from enhancement projects to periodic upgrades of off-the-shelf applications. Software-as-a-service (SaaS) provides a built-in continuous improvement mechanism via vendor-managed versioning, but the majority of the applications investment remains on-premises, with an increasing burden of technical debt as upgrades are deferred. This research provides best practices for AD&D teams as they plan their strategy for continuously delivering the highest business results from their organization's application base. This report was originally published on June 18, 2013 and updated on October 17, 2014; Forrester reviews it periodically for continued relevance and accuracy, most recently in September 2015. In this revision, the report has been updated to reflect our revised focus on packaged applications.