Problems

Typically in a large company like Georgia Pacific thousands of application are used for many different reasons for several different divisions of the company. As the company progresses, more and more applications are added to the company while other applications go out of date thus, creating a cluster of applcation that are diffucult to maintain. In a domino effect, the IT help desk face challenges when they become overwhelmed with calls from internal employees regarding redudant questions as:
 * Who is the Application Owner?
 * What format is this application?
 * Do we have similar applicaions?

These type of questions are very frequenty asked causing the worker productivity of the IT Help desk to decline. These type quesitons can be solved through an Application Portfolio. Some other common problems consist of

__Redundacy of Applications-__ Georgia Pacific spends millions of dollars for the operations of application. In some occasiosn there will be a few applications that perform the exact same functions. Redundant applications increase cost and contribute largely to the cluster of applications __Lack of Awareness-__ Due to the overwhelming number of applications, it can be diffucult for users to keep up with the applications. Often times users may forget about certain applications or may not be aware of the program at all. __Lack of Maintenence/Updating-__ As time progresses, applications grow older and may become out of date if they are not frequently udated. Because the the complexed number of applications, delegations of application responsibility becomes lost causing applications to become forgotten and out of date. __No Assetment of Applications-__ It is common for financial managers to assess the specific capabilities of each applications. Such as:
 * What business groups does this application supports?
 * How muc do we spend to maintain this applications?
 * How many users utilize this applications?
 * How can this application better support our buisness goals in terms of competitive advantage?

Upper level managers wish to answer these quesions to better understand the functionality of the applicions. However, due to the many applications, it makes this analysis much more complex.