Survey Reveals Unified Observability Is Key Driver of IT Productivity and Digital Customer Experience

Unified View of Digital Infrastructure Is Critical for Overburdened IT Teams Trying to Achieve More with Less Resources Amidst an IT Staffing Crisis

A new survey from leading market research firm IDC revealed that a unified view of digital infrastructure is essential for IT teams that must improve the digital customer experience while boosting overall organizational productivity. IT teams at organizations of all sizes are overwhelmed, short-staffed and require more advanced tools that deliver intelligence and actionable insights to help them troubleshoot issues in real-time according to the IDC Signature White Paper, “The Shift to Unified Observability: Reasons, Requirements and Returns” (doc #US49303722, June 2022).

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Sponsored by Riverbed®, the new survey revealed that IT teams are struggling to effectively manage highly distributed digital infrastructures and deliver digital experiences that meet increasingly high customer expectations. The survey of 1,400 IT workers across 10 countries uncovered the following:

• 90% of respondents currently use observability tools yet 60% of them believe those tools are too narrowly focused and fail to provide a complete and unified view of their organization’s operating conditions.
• 60% said the lack of unified observability restricts the IT organization’s ability to meet business requirements, and 59% said it makes their job and the job of their staff/peers more difficult.

According to respondents the need to unify observability across all IT (applications, network infrastructure, cloud, end-user services, smart end drives) is being driven by staff, security, cloud and resiliency. Specifically, the top 5 drivers cited included: improving IT teamwork and productivity across domains; increasing cybersecurity threats; managing hybrid networks; supporting a hybrid/remote workforce; and resolving problems faster or avoiding problems altogether.

Yet, for IT teams already overwhelmed by their current workloads, the struggle with observability solutions has a direct impact on costs and prevents IT leaders from concentrating on strategic business initiatives:

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• In this current IT staffing shortage, 56% of respondents agree their organization struggles to hire and retain highly skilled IT staff.
• 58% of respondents believe that their most well-trained IT staff spend too much time on tactical responsibilities, and 63% of respondents agree their organization needs to find ways to enable lower-skilled IT staff to find and fix issues.

Despite using multiple observability tools, enterprises are still struggling with data collection and are unable to gain actionable insights that improve decision making:

• 54% of organizations use six or more discrete tools for IT monitoring and measurement, and 61% said the tool limitations hold back productivity and collaboration.
• 75% of organizations have difficulty analyzing correlations and deriving actionable insights.

“When IT teams use observability tools that span domains, it fosters teamwork and operational success, which is critical during this period of IT talent scarcity,” said Mike Marks, Riverbed vice president, of product marketing. “The intelligence and insights delivered through Unified Observability allow even more junior-level IT staff to take fast and decisive action without escalating, letting senior IT leaders focus on strategic business initiatives that improve the customer and employee experience.”

As observability becomes the responsibility of C-level technology executives (CIOs, CTOs, CDOs, etc.), companies are also investing more dollars in observability solutions:

• 50% of respondents say their observability budgets will rise in the next two years, and 30% say their budget will increase more than 25%.

“In order to improve service integrity, staff productivity, and the end-to-end digital experience, organizations are taking a more concerted and proactive approach to managing and securing their digital infrastructures,” said Mark Leary, Research Director, Network Analytics and Automation, IDC. “Unified observability solutions, with their ability to leverage comprehensive and shared intelligence and deliver precise and actionable insights, benefit IT, end users, and the business.”

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[To share your insights with us, please write to sghosh@martechseries.com]