Application landscapes tend to grow quietly — another system, another contract, another integration — until cost, risk, and complexity become impossible to ignore. By that point, arbitrary cuts are dangerous, and a coherent plan is missing.

This service makes the application portfolio visible, understandable, and actionable, so that rationalization is driven by evidence rather than pressure.

→ Book a 30-min intro call

When this service fits

A portfolio optimization engagement is the right format when:

  • run costs keep rising without a clear driver;
  • legacy systems are blocking change in adjacent initiatives;
  • ownership and accountability for applications are unclear or contested;
  • previous rationalization attempts stalled or produced short-lived savings.

Portfolio decisions need structural insight, not headline-driven cuts.

What I help leaders decide

The focus is on decisions such as:

  • which applications genuinely support critical business capabilities, and which are surviving by inertia;
  • where duplication and redundancy add real resilience, and where they only add cost;
  • what can be retired, consolidated, replaced, or modernized — and at what cost and risk;
  • how to sequence change safely, without damaging capabilities the business depends on.

How this work is approached

The work emphasises evidence over assumption, and sequencing over scale:

  1. Build a shared, fact-based view of the application landscape: cost, usage, ownership, risk.
  2. Define objective criteria tied to business capability, not just technology age or spend.
  3. Map dependencies so that decommissioning decisions do not expose the business to unintended breakage.
  4. Produce a sequenced plan that starts with the highest-value, lowest-risk moves.

The aim is structural cost reduction — savings that hold up over time, not false savings that return the following year.

What this service is not

  • An across-the-board cost cut by another name.
  • A pure technology inventory disconnected from business capabilities.
  • A migration to a specific product or vendor portfolio.
  • Licence management or procurement negotiation on its own.

It is decision support for leaders who need to reshape what the business owns and runs.

Outcomes clients tend to see

  • Structurally lower run costs, defensible with evidence.
  • Simplified landscape and clearer ownership.
  • Better ability to change — fewer systems blocking adjacent work.
  • Governance that prevents the next cycle of silent accumulation.

National top-2 aviation hub. Product portfolio reduced from 4,600 to 1,200 items with time-to-market cut threefold, through classification, lifecycle rules, and governance applied across 19 legal entities. The same discipline — evidence, criteria, sequencing — applies to application portfolios.

Full list in the Cases section.

Engagement format

  • Fixed-scope project — 8 to 16 weeks. Portfolio assessment, target landscape, and a sequenced rationalization plan.
  • Fractional or embedded advisor — months. Governance and decision support during execution of the rationalization plan.

How to start

This service usually begins with a clear question — “where is the cost actually coming from, and what can we safely remove?” A short conversation is often enough to see whether an architectural approach would produce better answers than another round of spreadsheet analysis.

→ Book a 30-min intro call

Email: vkgeorgia@icloud.com · LinkedIn: Valerii Korobeinikov