Running the ‘App Tap’ costs corporates £400 per employee annually

An average of four out of five application instances available to employees are never used. This is according to analysis of more than three million desktops supported by Centrix Software’s WorkSpace iQ WorkSpace Management solution.

The findings are consistent across all sizes and types of businesses, including FTSE companies and major government institutions.

Charts, based on analysis of nine well known private and public sector organisations, show how the 80:20 rule applies across all industries. As the number of instances of installed apps and the number of different apps increases, the percentage of how many are really being used stays almost flat.

With the widening access to business apps on mobile devices, plus the increasing availability of apps in the cloud and the corporate shift towards enterprise app stores, the challenge is only getting bigger - and is driving this percentage of unused apps up from 80 to 95 per cent.

Furthermore, Centrix Software has found that managing user end points based on usage can save a minimum of £400 per desktop annually, regardless of company size or industry. The migration from Microsoft Windows XP to Windows 7 or 8 is a typical example where wastage can be stopped. According to Gartner it costs $1,470 to migrate a typical user to Windows XP; with custom app remediation costing anything from $50,960 to more than $200,000 for just one app. One Centrix Software customer undertaking a Windows XP migration project had 7,000 apps installed, however, only 1,500 of these were being used. Migrating just the used apps reduced the estimated project costs from £10.5 million, to between £600,000 and £2.25 million.

Lisa Hammond, CEO at Centrix Software said. “Companies simply don’t believe the kind of statistics we reveal analysing their apps based on usage rather than installations or licenses. We need to bring a consumer mindset into the business world. Generally if people are paying for apps for their iPads or smart phones they will unsubscribe if they aren’t using them, because it’s their own money. Why don’t companies think like this? This is where visibility is key. Turn off the ‘App Tap’!” Lisa urged.

She continued “Users love the idea of ‘App Stores’; being able to choose what apps to install, when and where they need them, just like they can on their smart phones and tablets. The most far-sighted organisations are even allowing their employees to manage their own desktop app budgets - and introducing elements of gamification to encourage users to remove apps they aren’t using in exchange for points or additional budget to spend on other apps.” Lisa added “Building a new enterprise app store without detailed usage information to help you decide which apps to make available to which users, is like giving them access to every app in the Apple or Microsoft Windows Store, without any rules. The company wonders why the app store is unmanageable and hugely expensive - and the user experience is disappointing as well.”