Real value of Application Lifecycle Management

There are so many definitions for application lifecycle management out there; almost all of them discussing the relations between the phases of software manufacturing. There were times that I completely agreed with them, and don't get me wrong,on the methodological level: I still do, but on the practical level I think they left out the most important part: lifecycle management is all about cutting costs and effectively using resources to optimize your product value. IIn my opinion, the key success criteria for lifecycle process implementation are whether the business is able, at one glace, to find out the complete expected expenditure on a new feature and the timeline for its release. Software development should not be looked at through a foggy glass; all the information should be available and crystal clear for the decision makers. Once we are technically able to measure every new requirement coming from a customer or a feature suggestion by our product manager by its real value: the amount we are about to spend building it opposed to the expected volume of sales and revenues, only then we gain the ability of achieving well balanced technical/business decisions and focus all our efforts on the features necessary for our product success.