Modern Applications Help Organizations Succeed During Pandemic

Organizations have benefited from the use of modern applications to adapt and maintain agility and reliability during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to new research by VMware.

The global study, conducted in March and April 2020, also reveals improved perceptions of alignment across app developers, IT and business decision makers as they collaborate to help their organizations operate amid the pandemic.

Additionally, it captures the traits that the most successful organizations are adopting to better their digital experiences.

For years now, businesses have been on a mission to digitally transform themselves and their operations. This year's global pandemic served as a barometer for the true state of that digital transformation. And the results, according to VMware's "Successful Digital Transformation: Apps At The Ready" report are less dire than expected: only 2% of all respondents said digital transformation efforts have not been successful in any way. Key to that success has been technology which provides the foundation for any transformation initiative or app/software development project. Organizations that can modernize the tools at their disposal will see their chances of success increase.

"The speed that organizations moved their engagement to digital channels during the pandemic signals the critical importance of modern applications," said Sumit Dhawan, senior vice president and chief customer experience officer, VMware. "Businesses need to do more than transform capabilities to deliver digital experiences for customers and for employees. Ultimately, it is about cultivating software-minded leadership, driving alignment among app developers, IT and the business, and adopting strategic technology platforms to thrive."

Three key findings from the research:

1. Modern Applications Can Help Organizations Succeed During the Pandemic

Modern apps are not only helping organizations operate and maintain their agility and reliability during the pandemic, they are furthering digital transformation efforts too.

■ The main benefits of modern, cloud-native apps during the pandemic include:

- Enabling remote workforces (54%)

- Pushing quick updates in response to changing landscape (42%)

- Maintaining reliable uptime (41%).

■ According to app developers (app devs) and IT decision makers (ITDMs), modern apps also provide:

- Improved end user experience (46%)

- Increased app/software performance (43%

- More efficient use of app/software developer time (43%)

■ Almost all respondents (97%) have seen some success, big or small, from their digital transformation efforts. The top three digital transformation priorities for organizations are:

- Increasing business efficiency (48%)

- Improving the customer experience (42%)

- Upgrading existing technology platforms (39%)

2. Pandemic Shifts People's Mindsets and Perceptions of their Organizations

Respondents described their companies, priorities and team working relationships differently before the pandemic than during the pandemic. Alignment between different departments is a crucial driver of success in the best of times. During this pandemic, its importance increases exponentially.

■ US and UK respondents were more likely to agree that their company was "on the cutting edge and quick to embrace change" during the pandemic (25%) than they were before it (15%).

■ There is a marked improvement in how teams characterized their alignment during the pandemic:

- App dev and IT teams (increased from 64% with good or excellent alignment pre-pandemic to 70% during)

- App dev and business teams (increased from 57% to 67%)

- IT and business teams (increased from 55% to 67%)

■ The digital transformation priorities of "reducing costs" and "improving the employee experience" are weighed much more equally during the pandemic (29% and 27% respectively) than before (37% and 20% respectively).

3. Software-Minded Leaders, Modern Tools and Agile Processes Help Improve Digital Experience

According to the research, organizations seeking to thrive in this digital world should adopt tech savvy leadership, modern app/software development processes, and modern developer tools to successfully deliver net-new apps and update/upgrade existing apps into production.

■ Leaders Matter – 88% of respondents say organizations with software-minded leaders are more successful.

■ Embrace Developer Processes – 80% of app dev and ITDM respondents agree that embracing developer processes such as test and learn would enable organizations to work more effectively and efficiently.

■ Modernize Tools – 80% of surveyed app dev and ITDMs say teams must modernize the technologies they use to develop and deploy apps and software for development projects to be more successful.

■ Develop Differently – 79% of app dev and ITDM respondents agree that organizations will not be able to deliver a best-in-class end user experience without successfully modernizing application/software development processes.

■ High performing (HP) organizations, which grow 15%+ per year, do the following better than underperforming (UP) organizations which are experiencing falling annual revenue:

- New software/app development projects making it into production on average (73% HP vs. 40% UP)

- Average proportion of time in app dev process spent innovating (50% HP vs 39% UP), per app devs and ITDMs

- More than half of their dev processes could be considered agile (83% HP vs 24% UP), according to app devs and ITDMs

Methodology: The VMware Successful Digital Transformation: Apps At The Ready report is based on a survey of 5,000 business decision makers, IT decision makers and app developers at mid- to large-sized organizations in 17 countries around the world. Vanson Bourne conducted the survey in March and April 2020.

Hot Topics

The Latest

Observability Costs Rising Faster Than Value

The gap is widening between what teams spend on observability tools and the value they receive amid surging data volumes and budget pressures, according to The Breaking Point for Observability Leaders, a report from Imply ...

Customers Demand Frictionless Experiences - This Is How Retailers Can Provide Them

Seamless shopping is a basic demand of today's boundaryless consumer — one with little patience for friction, limited tolerance for disconnected experiences and minimal hesitation in switching brands. Customers expect intuitive, highly personalized experiences and the ability to move effortlessly across physical and digital channels within the same journey. Failure to deliver can cost dearly ...

IT's Motivation Crisis Is Really a Process Crisis

If your best engineers spend their days sorting tickets and resetting access, you are wasting talent. New global data shows that employees in the IT sector rank among the least motivated across industries. They're under a lot of pressure from many angles. Pressure to upskill and uncertainty around what agentic AI means for job security is creating anxiety. Meanwhile, these roles often function like an on-call job and require many repetitive tasks ...

AI Now Interacts With Production Databases in 96.5% of Organizations as Governance Automation Lags

In a 2026 survey conducted by Liquibase, the research found that 96.5% of organizations reported at least one AI or LLM interaction with their production databases, often through analytics and reporting, training pipelines, internal copilots, and AI generated SQL. Only a small fraction reported no interaction at all. That means the database is no longer a downstream system that AI "might" reach later. AI is already there ...

From Fragmented Systems to Intelligent Platforms: An ITIL+ Playbook for Enterprise IT Transformation

In many organizations, IT still operates as a reactive service provider. Systems are managed through fragmented tools, teams focus heavily on operational metrics, and business leaders often see IT as a necessary cost center rather than a strategic partner. Even well-run ITIL environments can struggle to bridge the gap between operational excellence and business impact. This is where the concept of ITIL+ comes in ...

UK Organizations Hit Observability Breaking Point

UK IT leaders are reaching a critical inflection point in how they manage observability, according to research from LogicMonitor. As infrastructure complexity grows and AI adoption accelerates, fragmented monitoring environments are driving organizations to rethink their operational strategies and consolidate tools ...

At the Edge, Performance Visibility Becomes a Reliability Requirement

For years, many infrastructure teams treated the edge as a deployment variation. It was seen as the same cloud model, only stretched outward: more devices, more gateways, more locations and a little more latency. That assumption is proving costly. The edge is not just another place to run workloads. It is a fundamentally different operating condition ...

Why Revenue Data Governance Is Now the CIO's Responsibility

AI can't fix broken data. CIOs who modernize revenue data governance unlock predictable growth-those who don't risk millions in failed AI investments. For decades, CIOs kept the lights on. Revenue was someone else's problem, owned by sales, led by the CRO, measured by finance. Those days are behind us ...

Beyond 2026: How 5G, Metaverse, and Edge AI Will Redefine Secure Remote Access

Over the past few years, organizations have made enormous strides in enabling remote and hybrid work. But the foundational technologies powering today's digital workplace were never designed for the volume, velocity, and complexity that is coming next. By 2026 and beyond, three forces — 5G, the metaverse, and edge AI — will fundamentally reshape how people connect, collaborate, and access enterprise resources ... The businesses that begin preparing now will gain a competitive head start. Those that wait will find themselves trying to secure environments that have already outgrown their architecture ...

Why IT Has Become the Proving Ground for Enterprise AI

Ask where enterprise AI is making its most decisive impact, and the answer might surprise you: not marketing, not finance, not customer experience. It's IT. Across three years of industry research conducted by Digitate, one constant holds true is that IT is both the testing ground and the proving ground for enterprise AI. Last year, that position only strengthened ...

Modern Applications Help Organizations Succeed During Pandemic

Organizations have benefited from the use of modern applications to adapt and maintain agility and reliability during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to new research by VMware.

The global study, conducted in March and April 2020, also reveals improved perceptions of alignment across app developers, IT and business decision makers as they collaborate to help their organizations operate amid the pandemic.

Additionally, it captures the traits that the most successful organizations are adopting to better their digital experiences.

For years now, businesses have been on a mission to digitally transform themselves and their operations. This year's global pandemic served as a barometer for the true state of that digital transformation. And the results, according to VMware's "Successful Digital Transformation: Apps At The Ready" report are less dire than expected: only 2% of all respondents said digital transformation efforts have not been successful in any way. Key to that success has been technology which provides the foundation for any transformation initiative or app/software development project. Organizations that can modernize the tools at their disposal will see their chances of success increase.

"The speed that organizations moved their engagement to digital channels during the pandemic signals the critical importance of modern applications," said Sumit Dhawan, senior vice president and chief customer experience officer, VMware. "Businesses need to do more than transform capabilities to deliver digital experiences for customers and for employees. Ultimately, it is about cultivating software-minded leadership, driving alignment among app developers, IT and the business, and adopting strategic technology platforms to thrive."

Three key findings from the research:

1. Modern Applications Can Help Organizations Succeed During the Pandemic

Modern apps are not only helping organizations operate and maintain their agility and reliability during the pandemic, they are furthering digital transformation efforts too.

■ The main benefits of modern, cloud-native apps during the pandemic include:

- Enabling remote workforces (54%)

- Pushing quick updates in response to changing landscape (42%)

- Maintaining reliable uptime (41%).

■ According to app developers (app devs) and IT decision makers (ITDMs), modern apps also provide:

- Improved end user experience (46%)

- Increased app/software performance (43%

- More efficient use of app/software developer time (43%)

■ Almost all respondents (97%) have seen some success, big or small, from their digital transformation efforts. The top three digital transformation priorities for organizations are:

- Increasing business efficiency (48%)

- Improving the customer experience (42%)

- Upgrading existing technology platforms (39%)

2. Pandemic Shifts People's Mindsets and Perceptions of their Organizations

Respondents described their companies, priorities and team working relationships differently before the pandemic than during the pandemic. Alignment between different departments is a crucial driver of success in the best of times. During this pandemic, its importance increases exponentially.

■ US and UK respondents were more likely to agree that their company was "on the cutting edge and quick to embrace change" during the pandemic (25%) than they were before it (15%).

■ There is a marked improvement in how teams characterized their alignment during the pandemic:

- App dev and IT teams (increased from 64% with good or excellent alignment pre-pandemic to 70% during)

- App dev and business teams (increased from 57% to 67%)

- IT and business teams (increased from 55% to 67%)

■ The digital transformation priorities of "reducing costs" and "improving the employee experience" are weighed much more equally during the pandemic (29% and 27% respectively) than before (37% and 20% respectively).

3. Software-Minded Leaders, Modern Tools and Agile Processes Help Improve Digital Experience

According to the research, organizations seeking to thrive in this digital world should adopt tech savvy leadership, modern app/software development processes, and modern developer tools to successfully deliver net-new apps and update/upgrade existing apps into production.

■ Leaders Matter – 88% of respondents say organizations with software-minded leaders are more successful.

■ Embrace Developer Processes – 80% of app dev and ITDM respondents agree that embracing developer processes such as test and learn would enable organizations to work more effectively and efficiently.

■ Modernize Tools – 80% of surveyed app dev and ITDMs say teams must modernize the technologies they use to develop and deploy apps and software for development projects to be more successful.

■ Develop Differently – 79% of app dev and ITDM respondents agree that organizations will not be able to deliver a best-in-class end user experience without successfully modernizing application/software development processes.

■ High performing (HP) organizations, which grow 15%+ per year, do the following better than underperforming (UP) organizations which are experiencing falling annual revenue:

- New software/app development projects making it into production on average (73% HP vs. 40% UP)

- Average proportion of time in app dev process spent innovating (50% HP vs 39% UP), per app devs and ITDMs

- More than half of their dev processes could be considered agile (83% HP vs 24% UP), according to app devs and ITDMs

Methodology: The VMware Successful Digital Transformation: Apps At The Ready report is based on a survey of 5,000 business decision makers, IT decision makers and app developers at mid- to large-sized organizations in 17 countries around the world. Vanson Bourne conducted the survey in March and April 2020.

Hot Topics

The Latest

Observability Costs Rising Faster Than Value

The gap is widening between what teams spend on observability tools and the value they receive amid surging data volumes and budget pressures, according to The Breaking Point for Observability Leaders, a report from Imply ...

Customers Demand Frictionless Experiences - This Is How Retailers Can Provide Them

Seamless shopping is a basic demand of today's boundaryless consumer — one with little patience for friction, limited tolerance for disconnected experiences and minimal hesitation in switching brands. Customers expect intuitive, highly personalized experiences and the ability to move effortlessly across physical and digital channels within the same journey. Failure to deliver can cost dearly ...

IT's Motivation Crisis Is Really a Process Crisis

If your best engineers spend their days sorting tickets and resetting access, you are wasting talent. New global data shows that employees in the IT sector rank among the least motivated across industries. They're under a lot of pressure from many angles. Pressure to upskill and uncertainty around what agentic AI means for job security is creating anxiety. Meanwhile, these roles often function like an on-call job and require many repetitive tasks ...

AI Now Interacts With Production Databases in 96.5% of Organizations as Governance Automation Lags

In a 2026 survey conducted by Liquibase, the research found that 96.5% of organizations reported at least one AI or LLM interaction with their production databases, often through analytics and reporting, training pipelines, internal copilots, and AI generated SQL. Only a small fraction reported no interaction at all. That means the database is no longer a downstream system that AI "might" reach later. AI is already there ...

From Fragmented Systems to Intelligent Platforms: An ITIL+ Playbook for Enterprise IT Transformation

In many organizations, IT still operates as a reactive service provider. Systems are managed through fragmented tools, teams focus heavily on operational metrics, and business leaders often see IT as a necessary cost center rather than a strategic partner. Even well-run ITIL environments can struggle to bridge the gap between operational excellence and business impact. This is where the concept of ITIL+ comes in ...

UK Organizations Hit Observability Breaking Point

UK IT leaders are reaching a critical inflection point in how they manage observability, according to research from LogicMonitor. As infrastructure complexity grows and AI adoption accelerates, fragmented monitoring environments are driving organizations to rethink their operational strategies and consolidate tools ...

At the Edge, Performance Visibility Becomes a Reliability Requirement

For years, many infrastructure teams treated the edge as a deployment variation. It was seen as the same cloud model, only stretched outward: more devices, more gateways, more locations and a little more latency. That assumption is proving costly. The edge is not just another place to run workloads. It is a fundamentally different operating condition ...

Why Revenue Data Governance Is Now the CIO's Responsibility

AI can't fix broken data. CIOs who modernize revenue data governance unlock predictable growth-those who don't risk millions in failed AI investments. For decades, CIOs kept the lights on. Revenue was someone else's problem, owned by sales, led by the CRO, measured by finance. Those days are behind us ...

Beyond 2026: How 5G, Metaverse, and Edge AI Will Redefine Secure Remote Access

Over the past few years, organizations have made enormous strides in enabling remote and hybrid work. But the foundational technologies powering today's digital workplace were never designed for the volume, velocity, and complexity that is coming next. By 2026 and beyond, three forces — 5G, the metaverse, and edge AI — will fundamentally reshape how people connect, collaborate, and access enterprise resources ... The businesses that begin preparing now will gain a competitive head start. Those that wait will find themselves trying to secure environments that have already outgrown their architecture ...

Why IT Has Become the Proving Ground for Enterprise AI

Ask where enterprise AI is making its most decisive impact, and the answer might surprise you: not marketing, not finance, not customer experience. It's IT. Across three years of industry research conducted by Digitate, one constant holds true is that IT is both the testing ground and the proving ground for enterprise AI. Last year, that position only strengthened ...