Rationalize the Application Portfolio Before Complexity Wins
Merging two organizations means inheriting hundreds of applications — many doing the same thing, many poorly documented, and some that nobody knows are still running. RLM inventories the combined application landscape, scores each application for business value and technical health, and designs the rationalization roadmap.
Application Rationalization
RLM provides independent, vendor-neutral advisory that gives deal teams and integration leaders the technology clarity they need to make informed decisions and execute with confidence.
Application Portfolio Inventory
We build a complete application inventory across both organizations — commercial software, custom-built applications, integrations, and shadow IT — documenting owners, users, infrastructure dependencies, and annual cost.
Business Value & Technical Health Scoring
We score each application on two dimensions: business value (user dependency, revenue impact, strategic importance) and technical health (maintainability, security posture, integration complexity) to create a rationalization priority matrix.
Keep, Migrate, Replace, Retire
We assign a disposition to every application — keep as-is, migrate to the surviving platform, replace with a consolidated alternative, or retire entirely — with justification and effort estimates for each decision.
Integration & Data Dependency Mapping
We map application-to-application integrations, data flows, and shared services across both organizations — ensuring rationalization decisions account for downstream impacts and integration dependencies.
Rationalization Wave Planning
We organize application rationalization into phased waves — quick wins first (obvious duplicates, unused applications), followed by complex consolidations that require data migration, user training, and business process alignment.
Migration & Retirement Support
We provide advisory support through application migration and retirement — data extraction, user transition planning, integration rerouting, and the verification that retired applications are fully decommissioned without data loss or business disruption.
Where This Matters Most
Sector-specific considerations we see repeatedly in manda advisory engagements.
A Sample of the M&A Advisory Providers We Evaluate
RLM is vendor neutral. These are among 600+ providers in our evaluation set — inclusion here is not an endorsement, and we are paid by the provider you choose, not by any provider in particular. How that works →
Ready to Rationalize Your Application Portfolio?
Start with a no-cost application assessment — we'll inventory the combined portfolio and build the rationalization roadmap.
Talk to an M&A Advisor