Skip to main content

Rapid Tech Expansion Creates Chaos for the Majority of Businesses

A vast majority (89%) of organizations have rapidly expanded their technology in the past few years and three quarters (76%) say it's brought with it increased "chaos" that they have to manage, according to Situation Report 2024: Managing Technology Chaos from Software AG.

This makes governance efforts more complex, organizations less agile and can harm core activities including service delivery and productivity.


Source: Software AG

Dr Stefan Sigg, Chief Product Officer at Software AG, said, "The complexity that organizations face in today's world of disruption, risk and rapid technology change is greater than ever. It's difficult to get a grip on all of this and be a successful organization. We see our customers overcoming these challenges by finding the right tools to manage this technology related disorder. What those tools are depends on how the challenges manifest — but there is an answer out there. And for those that find it, they can become more competitive, more efficient, and more resilient."

The three types of chaos identified as part of this research are:

Operational Chaos — where a maze of different processes and systems slow down, duplicate or disrupt day-to-day operations. Overcoming these operational barriers allows organizations to be more competitive, better controlled and more agile. Operational resilience is the prize for organizations that can manage operational chaos.

Chaos of Connectivity — where the expansion of systems is done without a plan to properly connect them together. Overcoming this lack of connectivity allows organizations to become more productive, agile, and better governed.

IT Chaos — where the multiplication of different systems is not done in a coordinated way and technology sprawls uncontrolled and unmanaged. Overcoming this IT threat enables organizations to control costs, plan future development and increase operational resilience.

Sigg continued, "Finding the right tools to manage the portfolio is key. But we should not be just talking about managing. These technology investments are being made as part of a transformation agenda. Organizations are aiming to differentiate themselves, be innovative and grow. Technology is a critical enabler for most of those plans. Greater transparency and control over the technology landscape will better align the tech and business agendas and set these companies up for success."

Impact of expansion

■ 69% of organizations have a higher number of disparate applications/systems compared to 2 years ago.

■ 71% say that number will be higher in two years' time.

■ 70% of companies have accrued more Technical Debt in the last year.

■ Managing legacy and new systems together is increasingly complex for 44%.

Agility issues

■ 80% say the size of technology infrastructure makes it harder to be agile and/or productive.

■ The same number (80%) feel complex tech makes them slow to launch new products/services, improve experiences for customers and employees and increase revenue/profitability.

Governance issues

■ 65% feel that tech complexity makes governance issues worse.

■ 46% say difficulty moving data out of legacy systems slows down decision making.

■ 81% say that a major pain point is not having a clear view/management of all systems.

Operational issues

■ 45% say duplicate process that cause internal conflict slows down action.

■ IT and LoB are in conflict about deploying new apps in 80% of organizations.

■ 82% of organizations say Shadow IT is a problem.

Methodology: The research was conducted in November 2023, across the USA, UK and Germany.

The Latest

I've spent a lot of time in the channel, and one thing I keep coming back to is this: a partner program is only as good as what it looks like in the field. Many programs look great on paper, but when a partner is in front of a customer navigating a complex hybrid environment or trying to make the case for AI-powered observability, the gap between what a vendor promises and what it actually delivers becomes very clear, very fast ...

Enterprises today operate in a real-time environment where uninterrupted access to trusted data has become a baseline expectation for users, applications and automated systems. Traditional DataOps models, built on manual effort and human triage, cannot keep pace with this always active demand. AI agents are emerging as the operational backbone, ensuring consistent data availability, reinforcing trustworthiness and enabling a level of scale that manual processes cannot achieve ...

For decades, trust in the digital workplace rested on familiar signals. We trusted faces on video calls, voices on the phone, and emails that appeared to come from people we knew. These cues felt human and intuitive. They anchored how decisions were made, approvals were granted, and access was authorized. AI-powered deepfakes have quietly broken that model ...

Cloud migration was supposed to be a one-way door. For most enterprises, it turns out it isn't. Cloud data repatriation is a real and growing trend. A new survey ... finds that 89% of organizations plan to expand their on-premises infrastructure footprint over the next two years — and 75% have already moved at least some workloads back from public cloud in the past 24 months. The findings point to a broad rethinking of where data belongs ...

Over the past few years, large language models (LLMs) have revolutionized the software industry. Given their ability to excel at multi-step reasoning, LLMs have helped enterprises streamline workflows and adapt to the unknown. However, employing such models comes with sky-high costs, latency issues, and limited flexibility. In the realm of IT operations, it is generally wiser to employ smaller, domain-specific models instead ...

For years, DevOps teams operated under a simple assumption: collect enough telemetry, and you can find and fix any problem. That assumption is breaking down. Modern enterprises now operate across microservices, hybrid cloud environments, APIs, Kubernetes, and highly automated delivery pipelines. Releases happen continuously, dependencies shift constantly, and failures spread faster than teams can diagnose them ...

New Relic surveyed IT and engineering leaders from the media and entertainment (M&E) sector to understand what's working — and where challenges persist with their observability practices. The findings reveal how M&E organizations are navigating rising platform complexity, audience expectations, and AI-driven change. Below are five takeaways that stand out ...

Let me start with something I've seen play out more times than I can count. A team hits a wall with the cloud. Costs creep up, then spike. Performance starts to feel inconsistent. Someone in finance asks a simple question like "why did this double?" and nobody has a clean answer ... Maybe this isn't the right place for everything. That realization feels like a breakthrough, like you've identified the problem. In reality, you've just identified the starting line ...

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 24, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses network observability tool sprawl ... 

In cloud-native systems, scaling is often as simple as moving a slider. For on-premise databases, the stakes are different. Over-provisioning hardware is expensive. Under-provisioning leads to performance bottlenecks that are difficult to fix once the equipment is in the rack ...

Rapid Tech Expansion Creates Chaos for the Majority of Businesses

A vast majority (89%) of organizations have rapidly expanded their technology in the past few years and three quarters (76%) say it's brought with it increased "chaos" that they have to manage, according to Situation Report 2024: Managing Technology Chaos from Software AG.

This makes governance efforts more complex, organizations less agile and can harm core activities including service delivery and productivity.


Source: Software AG

Dr Stefan Sigg, Chief Product Officer at Software AG, said, "The complexity that organizations face in today's world of disruption, risk and rapid technology change is greater than ever. It's difficult to get a grip on all of this and be a successful organization. We see our customers overcoming these challenges by finding the right tools to manage this technology related disorder. What those tools are depends on how the challenges manifest — but there is an answer out there. And for those that find it, they can become more competitive, more efficient, and more resilient."

The three types of chaos identified as part of this research are:

Operational Chaos — where a maze of different processes and systems slow down, duplicate or disrupt day-to-day operations. Overcoming these operational barriers allows organizations to be more competitive, better controlled and more agile. Operational resilience is the prize for organizations that can manage operational chaos.

Chaos of Connectivity — where the expansion of systems is done without a plan to properly connect them together. Overcoming this lack of connectivity allows organizations to become more productive, agile, and better governed.

IT Chaos — where the multiplication of different systems is not done in a coordinated way and technology sprawls uncontrolled and unmanaged. Overcoming this IT threat enables organizations to control costs, plan future development and increase operational resilience.

Sigg continued, "Finding the right tools to manage the portfolio is key. But we should not be just talking about managing. These technology investments are being made as part of a transformation agenda. Organizations are aiming to differentiate themselves, be innovative and grow. Technology is a critical enabler for most of those plans. Greater transparency and control over the technology landscape will better align the tech and business agendas and set these companies up for success."

Impact of expansion

■ 69% of organizations have a higher number of disparate applications/systems compared to 2 years ago.

■ 71% say that number will be higher in two years' time.

■ 70% of companies have accrued more Technical Debt in the last year.

■ Managing legacy and new systems together is increasingly complex for 44%.

Agility issues

■ 80% say the size of technology infrastructure makes it harder to be agile and/or productive.

■ The same number (80%) feel complex tech makes them slow to launch new products/services, improve experiences for customers and employees and increase revenue/profitability.

Governance issues

■ 65% feel that tech complexity makes governance issues worse.

■ 46% say difficulty moving data out of legacy systems slows down decision making.

■ 81% say that a major pain point is not having a clear view/management of all systems.

Operational issues

■ 45% say duplicate process that cause internal conflict slows down action.

■ IT and LoB are in conflict about deploying new apps in 80% of organizations.

■ 82% of organizations say Shadow IT is a problem.

Methodology: The research was conducted in November 2023, across the USA, UK and Germany.

The Latest

I've spent a lot of time in the channel, and one thing I keep coming back to is this: a partner program is only as good as what it looks like in the field. Many programs look great on paper, but when a partner is in front of a customer navigating a complex hybrid environment or trying to make the case for AI-powered observability, the gap between what a vendor promises and what it actually delivers becomes very clear, very fast ...

Enterprises today operate in a real-time environment where uninterrupted access to trusted data has become a baseline expectation for users, applications and automated systems. Traditional DataOps models, built on manual effort and human triage, cannot keep pace with this always active demand. AI agents are emerging as the operational backbone, ensuring consistent data availability, reinforcing trustworthiness and enabling a level of scale that manual processes cannot achieve ...

For decades, trust in the digital workplace rested on familiar signals. We trusted faces on video calls, voices on the phone, and emails that appeared to come from people we knew. These cues felt human and intuitive. They anchored how decisions were made, approvals were granted, and access was authorized. AI-powered deepfakes have quietly broken that model ...

Cloud migration was supposed to be a one-way door. For most enterprises, it turns out it isn't. Cloud data repatriation is a real and growing trend. A new survey ... finds that 89% of organizations plan to expand their on-premises infrastructure footprint over the next two years — and 75% have already moved at least some workloads back from public cloud in the past 24 months. The findings point to a broad rethinking of where data belongs ...

Over the past few years, large language models (LLMs) have revolutionized the software industry. Given their ability to excel at multi-step reasoning, LLMs have helped enterprises streamline workflows and adapt to the unknown. However, employing such models comes with sky-high costs, latency issues, and limited flexibility. In the realm of IT operations, it is generally wiser to employ smaller, domain-specific models instead ...

For years, DevOps teams operated under a simple assumption: collect enough telemetry, and you can find and fix any problem. That assumption is breaking down. Modern enterprises now operate across microservices, hybrid cloud environments, APIs, Kubernetes, and highly automated delivery pipelines. Releases happen continuously, dependencies shift constantly, and failures spread faster than teams can diagnose them ...

New Relic surveyed IT and engineering leaders from the media and entertainment (M&E) sector to understand what's working — and where challenges persist with their observability practices. The findings reveal how M&E organizations are navigating rising platform complexity, audience expectations, and AI-driven change. Below are five takeaways that stand out ...

Let me start with something I've seen play out more times than I can count. A team hits a wall with the cloud. Costs creep up, then spike. Performance starts to feel inconsistent. Someone in finance asks a simple question like "why did this double?" and nobody has a clean answer ... Maybe this isn't the right place for everything. That realization feels like a breakthrough, like you've identified the problem. In reality, you've just identified the starting line ...

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 24, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses network observability tool sprawl ... 

In cloud-native systems, scaling is often as simple as moving a slider. For on-premise databases, the stakes are different. Over-provisioning hardware is expensive. Under-provisioning leads to performance bottlenecks that are difficult to fix once the equipment is in the rack ...