Issues in Informing Science and Information Technology Enterprise Applications Portfolio Management Utilizing COTS

The software assets that an enterprise applies toward the management of its business processes are bound to evolve in response to business model transformations dictated by changing management environments. Both a given set of software and its associated data form an asset portfolio that needs to be well managed to generate the greatest possible return over time. Tradeoffs between the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership, consisting of development and subsequent maintenance costs) and implementation speed present significant challenges to management decision-making. Here, a portfolio configuration management framework designed from a decision-maker’s point of view is proposed, and an experimental evaluation result is reported.