Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) solutions provide the best tools for teams who takes part in the software project any stage of its development: design, requirements definition, development, testing, validation, delivery and even maintenance, until the very end of the application’s life. With an ALM tool, companies can take complete control of their entire embedded software or application project process. Accelerate innovative projects, improve productivity, optimize licensing costs, better meet compliance requirements and more: discover here the benefits and ROI generated by an ALM tool, based on a business study.
A study on the ROI of an Application Lifecycle Management tool
For more than ten years, the implementation of ALM (Application Lifecycle Management) tools in companies has been growing. To better understand the benefits of a good ALM tool (also known as EAP – Enterprise Agile Planning Tool) in the industrial domain, a study was conducted by Wageningue University (Netherlands) and Bilkent University (Turkey). The results of this study entitled “Adopting integrated application lifecycle management within a large-scale software company: An action research approach” were published in 2019 by the Journal of Systems & Software, a computer science journal specializing in software systems.
This research took place over 7 years with a defense and IT company specializing in software and systems with more than 1,000 employees. The research began in 2010 and following the introduction of an ALM tool within a large software company, with the primary objective of increasing productivity and reducing maintenance costs. This study proves the benefits and ROI of deploying an ALM in the industry. You can see the results and the numbers related to these benefits just below.
Tuleap is mentioned in the study
Tuleap was mentioned in this study as a next-generation ALM tool that combines all the necessary features. Find out how Tuleap can help you develop high-quality, compliant software.
The benefits of an ALM tool related to acquisition
Acquisition costs are the costs of software and hardware licensing, management of acquisition activities and installation work.
- For licenses and hardware, the costs are divided by 20.
- The IT staff need of participation (man/month) for the management of the purchase/renewal activities of software solutions has been divided by 30.
- For installation activities, the man-month requirements have been divided by 5.
This ROI is possible thanks to bundled purchase of ALM licenses at more competitive prices, which was previously impossible since each team purchased its own tools individually and not as a group. Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) also allows teams to be aligned on the same development tools, thus promoting better collaboration, organization and work management.
With an ALM tool, licensing and hardware purchase costs were divided by 20.
Journal of Systems and Software – 2019
Benefits of ALM tools for operations
Operational costs include maintenance and backup operations and support and configuration activities.
- Maintenance and backup operations have been divided by 4.
- IT staff requirements (man-months) for support have been divided by 2.7.
- The time spent (man-months) for the configuration of the tools has been divided by 3.7.
This ROI is possible because the integration of an Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) solution allows the centralization of tools and the collaboration of employees around a single platform, making maintenance and support activities by IT teams easier.
Thanks to the implementation of an ALM tool, maintenance and backup operations by IT teams have been divided by 4.
Journal of Systems and Software – 2019
The benefits of an ALM tool linked to the organization
By “organizational benefits,” the study means the costs associated with training sessions and staff absence due to training.
- The absence of manpower for training is divided by 13.
- The costs related to additional training sessions are divided by 2.
These costs were avoided because the implementation of an ALM tool requires only one training session for employees.
The implementation of ALM software has cut the cost of training on multiple tools in half.
Journal of Systems and Software – 2019
Benefits of an ALM tool related to production
The production costs are related to the speed of project launch, test management and traceability, decision support and process compliance audit time.
- The launch of a new project went from 3 months to 3 hours.
- Time spent managing traceability in projects has been reduced to 0.
- Decision support efforts are divided by 9.
- Costs for compliance audit processes are divided by 4.5.
With the implementation of an ALM tool, audit costs have been divided by 4.5.
Journal of Systems and Software – 2019
These benefits were directly linked to the integration of an ALM tool into the work environment. Indeed, the centralization of all the elements related to the follow-up of the project (follow-up of tasks, developments, requirements management, test management, tracking of anomalies and changes,…) greatly facilitates decision-making and helps the company’s organization be more agile.
This centralization of tools and data is possible thanks to an Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) solution, that also guarantees better traceability at each stage of the project life cycle (design, requirements, development, testing, validation, delivery and even maintenance). In addition, an ALM tool helps accelerate the launch of a product on the market (aka the “time-to-market”), as to meet market requirements earlier, with greater reactivity and, also, to pass quality and industry-standard compliance audits more easily, faster.
An ALM tool helps your company win on multiple levels
In short, the integration of an Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) tool offers many benefits to both software and non-software development teams. By using an ALM tool, all teams can more effectively manage all of their activities throughout the entire application lifecycle; as we saw – from design, requirements definition, passing through development and testing, to final delivery and then maintenance.
By providing one single platform for “A to Z” management, an Application Lifecycle Management tool enables the capitalization of data, which plays a central role in company life and, more broadly, its overall performance. Among other things, an ALM solution facilitates internal communication and better management, encouraging teams to work in a more agile and collaborative way, which – in turn – promotes better visibility on project’s progress. As a result, project managers’ and other stakeholders’ decision-making can definitely improve.
The deployment of an Application Lifecycle Management tool (ALM), makes it possible not only to highly improve efficiency in project management and agility, but it also provides companies the way to maximize the quality of the code produced and the traceability, by taking back control of the entire software product process.
For example, quality tests are facilitated as they can be automated. So by using an ALM tool, teams can better ensure that their software product (an application) complies with industry quality and performance requirements; all this, while meeting delivery deadlines. The fact that an ALM tool makes it possible to streamline all application development, testing and deployment processes also participates to increase productivity and reduce financial costs… and actually, it can even contribute to an increase in profits and therefore a higher return on investment (ROI).