APMdigest asked experts from across Application Performance Management (APM) and related markets what they see as the most important way application performance impacts the business. The fourth and final installment covers business impacts you might not have thought about.

Start with 16 Ways Application Performance Impacts the Business - Part 1

Start with 16 Ways Application Performance Impacts the Business - Part 2

Start with 16 Ways Application Performance Impacts the Business - Part 3

13. EXPENSES

Application performance and service assurance are critical to business success since they impact the OpEx and CapEx associated with managing performance. Increased OpEx and CapEx are closely associated with an inadequate monitoring tool strategy and proliferation of disparate data sets that inhibit end-to-end service visibility and prevent a common situational awareness for the IT organization. On the other hand, fast triage of application and service performance problems will reduce IT expenses and make employees more productive, and also allow businesses to compete and innovate with confidence.
Ron Lifton
Senior Solutions Marketing Manager, NetScout

14. CONNECTED APPLICATIONS

As applications continue to become more critical to the line of business, they are also becoming increasingly interconnected. These loosely coupled applications are often owned and developed by different teams in different locations in different organizations. Loose coupling helps achieve agility but it comes with additional risk. A single application may have a cascading effect which will have larger impact on the overall business. In 2016, the increasing inter-application dependencies will lead to increased outages and unexpected performance issues. Enterprises should look for ways to consolidate technology silos and monitoring silos to mitigate this risk.
Russ Elsner
Consulting Architect, Office of the CTO, ScienceLogic

15. STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS

Today's apps rely on more than just your own product or service, but multiple third parties to increase functionality and improve performance, such as incorporating payments, geolocation or social sharing APIs. A pronounced way that application performance impacts the business is by opening the door to these strategic partnerships and technical integrations. It's a two-sided coin — your app performance improves by incorporating more complementary third-party services, but when one of those services goes down or fails, even though your own infrastructure isn't to blame, your customers can have a poor experience. The ecosystem of third-party APIs is a boon to business development, but also puts more responsibility on the part of app developers and QA teams.
Neil Mansilla
VP of Developer Relations, Runscope

16. DIGITAL BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION

Historically, IT operations focus on availability and performance was motivated by responding to — or preventing — outages involving the physical infrastructure that supports applications. Given the rapid adoption of virtual and cloud infrastructures, and the automation and redundancy benefits they afford, organizations are increasingly focused on application performance and end-user experience. I love the expression "slow is the new down" as it succinctly captures the growing emphasis organizations are placing on applications and users as companies transform to becoming digital businesses.
Marcus MacNeill
VP, Product Management, Zenoss