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Tag: economic impact

  • GitLab Makes Economic Case for DevOps Platform

    GitLab Makes Economic Case for DevOps Platform

    GitLab is advancing its case for integrating as many DevOps processes as possible on a single platform by making available an economic analysis that claims organizations can improve application development and delivery by 87%, resulting in a savings of more than $23 million.

    Based on an analysis conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of GitLab, the report concludes organizations can save as much as $3.7 million by reducing the number of DevOps tools they need to acquire by a factor of four.

    The report also claims organizations can also see a 12x increase in the number of revenue-generating application releases in a year, resulting in $12.3 million in additional revenue, while at the same time reducing code defects to generate more than $16.8 million in savings.

    Overall, the report says there is a 407% return on investment (ROI) in the GitLab platform.

    GitLab has made available an online DevOps cost estimator based on the Forrester Consulting report.

    Colin Fletcher, manager for market research and customer insights for GitLab, said the core GitLab platform is designed from the ground up to make every integrated tool a natural extension of the existing DevOps workflow.

    IT organizations are also focusing on productivity and workflow now that it’s apparent most DevOps teams will be working from home to help combat the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic well into 2021. That shift is requiring some organizations to reorganize DevOps teams around specific development projects, he noted.

    In the wake of the economic downturn brought on by the pandemic, there is also naturally a lot more focus on costs. At the same time, many organizations are trying to accelerate the rate at which applications are developed and deployed as part of a larger digital business transformation initiative. The more business processes become digitized, the more dependent organizations become on software.

    The issue many IT leaders are trying to navigate is finding a way to reduce costs without forcing every member of the DevOps team to standardize on the same set of tools. While it’s arguable there are too many tools employed in a DevOps process today, it’s also clear that most members of those teams prefer to select their own tool whenever possible.

    It’s too early to say to what degree IT organizations may be willing to re-engineer their DevOps processes. Most have spent a significant amount of time and effort tailoring existing platforms to fit their needs. The level of inertia surrounding existing DevOps workflows inside an IT organization is considerable, so IT leaders would have to exercise a considerable amount of political will to switch DevOps platforms. There are, however, often multiple DevOps platforms in use within the same organization. The pressure to rationalize those platforms increases in a downturn.

    In the meantime, there are plenty of IT teams that have still not embraced DevOps. As the size of the DevOps market continues to expand, competition among providers of DevOps platforms is intensifying. For the average IT organization, that’s usually a good thing until a key vendor is acquired by a rival that is not as committed to a platform on which the DevOps team depends.

  • Surviving Through the New Normal

    Surviving Through the New Normal

    As enterprises move from the first phase of the pandemic to the reopening phase, they’re going to have to determine what tech investments going forward will provide the most value in the their new normal.

    Emad Georgy, founder and CTO at consulting firm Georgy Technology Leadership, said that while overall tech spending will remain down, that pain won’t be evenly distributed. Georgy claimed that investments will continue to remain high in the obvious industries, of course, such as healthcare, retail and grocery chains.

    “However, multiple adjacent and dependent businesses investments will also remain high. Suppliers of materials required by these industries, companies involved in their supply chain, companies supporting remote collaboration tools will continue to thrive,” said Georgy.

    Coming off the heels of the economic shutdown, Alex Milowski, platforms researcher and evangelist at database management software provider Redis Labs, said that both people and systems have experienced significant disruptions, and this has hurt their productivity and strained technology platforms in some ways, while for other job functions platform and infrastructure are at over capacity.

    Milowski said organizations needed to strike a balance between the immediate needs of staff, so that they could adjust to the changes in their work and lives and still access critical work systems while also ensuring that customer needs are also met.

    However, now that enterprises are looking forward, how do they ensure that their digital transformation efforts remain in place?

    As enterprises get their footing as the new economic reality settles in, Milowski advised organizations to focus on small wins.

    “Prioritizing projects where one can increase the confidence of the team to function under uncertainty may be the best strategy. New projects may need to be created to address surges in demand via caching or acceleration systems,” said Milowski. “A team might use this time to address auto-scaling systems so they can scale-down as a cost-saving measure. The increased collaboration and creative problem solving will build team confidence in their ability to deliver. With each win, ensure readiness is improving.”

    Within those early successes, teams can then troubleshoot their processes with less disruption to their business.

    “As their confidence grows, they can ease into picking more business-critical and complex projects. In the end, they are more likely to succeed, with less disruption, as their team is now ready as they know how to deliver new digital initiatives in very different contexts. Successive small wins turn into big wins,” said Milowski.

    Georgy indicated that such uncertain times require a sharp focus and prioritization.

    “Financial insecurity often leads to sharpened discipline which one could argue we should have anyway in an organization. Unfortunately, many companies are plagued by ‘management by assumption.’ That is the practice of managing and deciding based on opinions or second-hand knowledge because they don’t have time to [dig into] the weeds,” he said.

    It’s time to prove concepts out. Georgy added that it’s more important than ever to make data-driven decisions based on experiential learning.

    “Opinions are no longer welcome. Every person at the decision table must justify their decisions with data, with real-world experience and with action,” he said.

    That can be done by CIOs as they track their changing customer base.

    “Customers are changing how they spend and re-evaluating what is important to them and this will be reflected in roadmaps as well. Now, more than ever, feedback loops, usability groups and touchpoints with customers to understand this changing dynamic is key to evaluate new approaches and priorities in the roadmap,” said Georgy.

    John Belden, project execution advisory services practice leader at UpperEdge, stated that now is the opportunity for CIOs to lead in a way that hasn’t been readily possible in more than 20 years.

    Belden advised CIOs to:

    • Take the lead: CIOs can win back the seat at the management table that they enjoyed during the Y2K era. By proactively reaching out to work with counterparts in HR, marketing and supply chain, CIOs can shift from order-taker to problem-solver, which will also help in prioritizing projects.
    • Determine an approach to road-mapping: There are likely to be three different strategies to road-mapping and navigating this time:
      1. Reinvent: This approach establishes a clean sheet of paper and takes a more traditional approach. Companies that could never get the cash or attention to build a roadmap, might have this work thrust upon them if corporate boards demand a pandemic risk mitigation plan.
      2. Revise: This would involve the shuffling of the existing portfolio, some reprioritization and confirmation of direction from the various vendor’s strategies.
      3. Accelerate: Some companies may have already charted a course that accounts for assumptions of a new world order. In these cases, it is likely that CIOs will be asked to accelerate to either leap-frog competitors or solidify their competitive position.
    • Transform vendor engagement strategy: The onslaught of vendor marketing initiatives and client targeting strategies could end up being like the wild west with cloud providers bypassing traditional IT channels to market their wares. CIOs need to work proactively with their business counterparts to set the ground rules for engagement and craft a strategy that motivates suppliers to assist clients in developing their own strategies that can be realized quickly and efficiently. Developing a long-term view in managing the short-term downtime will, in the end, pay dividends in executing during this economic downturn.

    Short-term survival with an eye on meeting long-term goals is key to survival, and in the months ahead those enterprises that successfully meet that balance will set themselves apart.

  • Coronavirus Impact: Enterprises Must Focus on What Works

    Coronavirus Impact: Enterprises Must Focus on What Works

    As the economic slowdown continues, CIOs, CFOs and enterprise technology teams continue to grapple with frozen budgets and how their enterprise will keep their operations functioning as they attempt to move forward with crucial digital transformation efforts, and possibly shelve those initiatives deemed less critical.

    How are CIOs deciding what projects get postponed? Many projects underway now are focused on business continuity and supporting remote work, but that can’t be the only focus for CIOs and enterprise technology leaders.

    Miles Ward, CTO at business-technology consultancy SADA Systems, said there is a substantial shift to enable staff to productively work from home, increase flexibility in spending and to automate operations, and rely increasingly on managed services so that demands on operations personnel are reduced.

    “Projects outside of those focus areas are going to get deprioritized unless they’re in the very final stages of delivery, where stopping creates more waste than it could prevent,” said Ward.

    According to a recent survey from Dresner Advisory Services, 61% of respondents said projects and budgets will be impacted by the pandemic, with sizable majorities reporting the same in Asia Pacific, Europe, Middle East, Africa and North America. The biggest impacts are expected to be in operations (manufacturing, supply chain, services) at 89%, executive management at 83%, marketing at 75%, finance at 65%, IT at 60%, research and development at 60% and business intelligence at 56%.

    Dresner Advisory Services found that those organizations with more than 5,000 employees expect the lowest level of impact, while organizations with 1,001 to 5,000 reported the highest level of impact.

    Jarod Greene, general manager at the Technology Business Management Council, said a great amount of uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 remains, including the rippling health, economic and business impact. It all presents an incredible challenge for all business leaders.

    “CIOs and other IT leaders, specifically, are in the thick of this challenge, [and they are] not only responsible for maintaining the continuity of operations and seamless work experiences but also factoring in the short-, mid- and long-term financial impact of their decisions,” said Greene.

    Greene contended that CIOs play a vital role in times like these, and that they can help organizations to clearly understand the costs and corresponding value of their technology investments, and therefore can advise business leaders of informed tradeoffs, rather than merely widespread cuts.

    “Conversations I’ve had with Technology Business Management Council members over the past days and weeks have focused on re-planning and forecasting and the execution cost optimization exercises—with the ability to measure the impact of those decisions,” said Greene.

    Time to Invest in Measurable Impact

    For many organizations, the focus has shifted to delivering improved technology experiences to customers.

    “The dot-com bubble burst and 9/11 may seem like ancient history to some. These were events that forced businesses to focus on what’s really important: providing value to customers and investing in projects with measurable impact on revenue and cash flow,” said Vaclav Vincalek, partner at business-technology consultancy Future Infinitive.

    “The cash shortage refocused management teams on what was vital for their businesses. The current situation will be no different. Business will have to adapt to a new environment and adapt quickly. Companies with well-planned strategies will adjust some tactics. If they’ve already planned for change and aligned with their vision, they’ll continue to succeed with focused execution,” said Vincalek.

    Alex Miłowski, platforms researcher and evangelist at Redis Labs, agreed.

    “Essential services, especially customer-facing communications systems, are likely to face surges in demand. As such, it is important to meet those demands rather than pull back and postpone,” said Miłowski.

    “It very much depends upon what type of business you are in. It’s not all doom and gloom. It hasn’t been for us, or for many of our customers,” added Kevin Grice, director of digital transformation at Trace Solutions. “That said, I think it’s a fair assumption that there will be widening ripple effects through all parts of the economy—so there are likely to be challenges ahead. How big the ripples are, and how long they last, is yet to be seen.”

    “Many companies have gone into a temporary lockdown, with a freeze on all development to reduce risk and the possibility of additional costs in a time of reduced cashflow. However, if this emergency goes on for any significant length of time, that approach will soon become unviable. So businesses will have to adapt,” said Grice.

    Not all companies have retrenched and have decided to keep moving forward with investments.

    “At Laserfiche, we currently do not have any projects on hold, rather, we are working to accelerate any [projects] that are related to business process automation as it helps the workforce. Content management and automation will continue to lead upcoming projects. As IT leaders, we have a responsibility to get things scaled quickly. The challenge we have is being agile and adapting to our ‘new normal,’ but we’re continuing to move forward,” said Thomas Phelps, Laserfiche’s CIO.

    Laserfiche isn’t the only company that has decided to keep moving forward. A survey of 317 CFOs, from research firm Gartner, found that 38% of those surveyed don’t have any plans to cut costs, and only 16% of CFOs said they plan to cut IT by more than 10%.

    What does Gartner advise enterprises do? Essentially, to do what they are doing: focusing more on what works and cutting the deadweight.

    “Where there is excess scope in their organization’s product or service portfolios, the hidden costs of complexity drag down profitability,” Dennis Gannon vice president, advisory at the Gartner’s finance practice said in this statement. “The best CFOs will use COVID-19 as the catalyst to derive significant operating leverage from their most profitable lines of business without destroying value.”