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How to Explain APM to Your CEO

Sharon Bell

Explaining why your CEO should care about Application Performance Management (APM) is not always an easy task. Your CEO wants to know in as little time as possible what it is, why I need it, and how it works, perhaps in that order.

Here is how to translate APM into CEO-speak and improve your chances of executive buy-in. To better sustain your CEO’s attention, consider adding in your own company-specific examples to show your CEO the bottom line of APM as it relates to your company.

What is Application Performance Management (APM)?

Your CEO wants a high level overview of the concept. Your CEO also wants to understand in what ways APM applies to the company’s specific products, services, marketing initiatives, operational practices, etc.

Try this general definition:

Application Performance Management (APM) is the use of tools and processes required to monitor software applications. APM helps IT detect and correct performance issues as soon as possible.

How it relates to your company:

Let’s say you’re a healthcare company. You might explain to your CEO that in addition to the general definition above, APM is the way you monitor your member portal.

During an open enrollment period when there is a sudden spike in traffic, your APM tool can alert you whenever a specific component of the portal becomes overloaded. You could tell your CEO that this vital intel helps IT get to the source of the problem and correct it sooner, so your new members will experience minimal poor performance accessing the portal for the first time.

Why do I need APM?

This is likely the most important question to your CEO. The CEO is asking you to justify APM and explain why you’re doing it — or why you should.

Remember, justifying an APM investment or improvement also requires you to explain why it is better than current practices and how it will help with your CEO’s bottom line. Time is money to your CEO, so use that fact to your advantage when you discuss how APM can help. Explain that a sound APM solution can enhance security, ensure application stability, and reduce the current cost of management.

General response:

An APM solution will fix or enhance our applications, making them more stable and secure. This will reduce overhead monitoring costs and provide a better opportunity for increased conversions.

How it relates to your company:

An ecommerce company might use a payment software application, A/B conversion testing software, and a mobile CDN solution to optimize customer transactions. With so many different applications running, it can be difficult to accurately protect and diagnose issues on your site without a solid APM solution.

If customers cannot complete transactions, IT needs to know immediately if fault lies with your lagging A/B conversion software loading the page or a compromised payment application, for example. Explain to your CEO that APM tools are essential to keep customers buying from your site and not your competitors’.

How does APM work?

A word of caution here: Your CEO is probably not asking you for technical details on how your proposed end-to-end solution will improve your J2EE monitoring. Your CEO wants to know how it will take fewer resources to reliably monitor application performance, which then promotes a consistent user experience and reduces lost revenue from downtime.

General explanation:

APM tools automatically repair performance and quality issues within our web, streaming and cloud applications or give IT an early warning sign. APM keeps apps running smoothly for our customers and prevents lost revenue due to technical difficulties.

How it relates to your company:

A travel and tourism company might have a custom search application to help vacationers decide where and when to go based on availability. Your CEO sees this application is critical to entice vacationers to buy. Explain that your application performance tool monitors each element of the search application and senses when an element is under stress. Tell your CEO that the APM tool will either ease the data load on the stressed element, or alert IT to the specific problem to be corrected if it cannot be done so automatically.

Final Thoughts

Speaking your CEO’s language and relating APM to your company can help you focus on your own bottom line and get executive buy-in. As Albert Einstein once said, "If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough." Consider defining complex terms beginning with a "[term] is…" structure. This will help you get to the essence of what you really want to convey to your CEO and build the foundation for further discussion.

Sharon Bell is Director of Marketing at CDNetworks.

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How to Explain APM to Your CEO

Sharon Bell

Explaining why your CEO should care about Application Performance Management (APM) is not always an easy task. Your CEO wants to know in as little time as possible what it is, why I need it, and how it works, perhaps in that order.

Here is how to translate APM into CEO-speak and improve your chances of executive buy-in. To better sustain your CEO’s attention, consider adding in your own company-specific examples to show your CEO the bottom line of APM as it relates to your company.

What is Application Performance Management (APM)?

Your CEO wants a high level overview of the concept. Your CEO also wants to understand in what ways APM applies to the company’s specific products, services, marketing initiatives, operational practices, etc.

Try this general definition:

Application Performance Management (APM) is the use of tools and processes required to monitor software applications. APM helps IT detect and correct performance issues as soon as possible.

How it relates to your company:

Let’s say you’re a healthcare company. You might explain to your CEO that in addition to the general definition above, APM is the way you monitor your member portal.

During an open enrollment period when there is a sudden spike in traffic, your APM tool can alert you whenever a specific component of the portal becomes overloaded. You could tell your CEO that this vital intel helps IT get to the source of the problem and correct it sooner, so your new members will experience minimal poor performance accessing the portal for the first time.

Why do I need APM?

This is likely the most important question to your CEO. The CEO is asking you to justify APM and explain why you’re doing it — or why you should.

Remember, justifying an APM investment or improvement also requires you to explain why it is better than current practices and how it will help with your CEO’s bottom line. Time is money to your CEO, so use that fact to your advantage when you discuss how APM can help. Explain that a sound APM solution can enhance security, ensure application stability, and reduce the current cost of management.

General response:

An APM solution will fix or enhance our applications, making them more stable and secure. This will reduce overhead monitoring costs and provide a better opportunity for increased conversions.

How it relates to your company:

An ecommerce company might use a payment software application, A/B conversion testing software, and a mobile CDN solution to optimize customer transactions. With so many different applications running, it can be difficult to accurately protect and diagnose issues on your site without a solid APM solution.

If customers cannot complete transactions, IT needs to know immediately if fault lies with your lagging A/B conversion software loading the page or a compromised payment application, for example. Explain to your CEO that APM tools are essential to keep customers buying from your site and not your competitors’.

How does APM work?

A word of caution here: Your CEO is probably not asking you for technical details on how your proposed end-to-end solution will improve your J2EE monitoring. Your CEO wants to know how it will take fewer resources to reliably monitor application performance, which then promotes a consistent user experience and reduces lost revenue from downtime.

General explanation:

APM tools automatically repair performance and quality issues within our web, streaming and cloud applications or give IT an early warning sign. APM keeps apps running smoothly for our customers and prevents lost revenue due to technical difficulties.

How it relates to your company:

A travel and tourism company might have a custom search application to help vacationers decide where and when to go based on availability. Your CEO sees this application is critical to entice vacationers to buy. Explain that your application performance tool monitors each element of the search application and senses when an element is under stress. Tell your CEO that the APM tool will either ease the data load on the stressed element, or alert IT to the specific problem to be corrected if it cannot be done so automatically.

Final Thoughts

Speaking your CEO’s language and relating APM to your company can help you focus on your own bottom line and get executive buy-in. As Albert Einstein once said, "If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough." Consider defining complex terms beginning with a "[term] is…" structure. This will help you get to the essence of what you really want to convey to your CEO and build the foundation for further discussion.

Sharon Bell is Director of Marketing at CDNetworks.

Hot Topics

The Latest

According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

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Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

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