1.4. What Is the Focus of an Enterprise Software Delivery Organization?

In general, enterprise software delivery organizations conduct three basic kinds of activities:

• Remediating and repairing existing systems. Currently, many existing resources are dedicated to fixing and upgrading existing systems to extend their useful life. These are tactical efforts aimed at addressing compelling short-term needs, reducing ongoing investment, or preparing these systems to be outsourced to third parties.

• Leveraging existing assets to improve productivity and performance. To supply new services in a cost-effective way, organizations are putting a great deal of effort into extracting value from existing systems, wrapping those pieces for access to new technologies, and assembling new applications. Building solutions from existing pieces will always be a key part of building cost-effective systems. However, opening up existing applications to new devices and Internet-based access requires the significant rework of many systems to ease access, optimize performance, implement additional security checks, and consolidate information from multiple sources.