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State of Digital Operations: IT Challenges in UK

Eric Sigler

While the majority of IT practitioners in the UK believe their organization is equipped to support digital services, over half of them also say they face consumer-impacting incidents at least one or more times a week, sometimes costing their organizations millions in lost revenue for every hour that an application is down, according to PagerDuty's State of Digital Operations Report: United Kingdom.

The report also highlighted that an organization's failure to deliver on consumer expectations for a seamless digital experience can greatly affect a company's brand reputation and bottom line.


The report found that nearly all (90.6 percent) of UK consumers surveyed use a digital application or service to complete tasks such as banking, making dinner reservations, finding transportation, grocery shopping and booking airline tickets, at least one or more times a week. This finding is indicative of the larger UK digital services landscape — IDC predicts that half of the Global 2000 enterprises will see the majority of their business depend on their ability to create and maintain digital services, products and applications by 2020. In addition, IDC says 89 percent of European organizations view digital transformation as central to their corporate strategy.

"With the rise in digital services in the UK, European businesses need to be ready to accelerate their digital transformation journey and adapt to consumer demands," said Jennifer Tejada, CEO at PagerDuty. "Disrupting brand and engagement experience means lost revenue and organizations need to be proactive versus reactive –– a reactive or automated approach to resolving consumer-facing incidents is not table stakes. Organizations can arm their IT teams by taking a holistic approach to incident response. Solutions that embrace capabilities such as machine learning and advanced response automation can help organizations easily deploy an expedited response to consumer-facing incidents."

IT Cannot Meet Consumer Expectations

The State of Digital Operations Report: United Kingdom revealed that along with the heavy reliance on digital services, UK consumers expect a seamless user experience, and IT organizations are struggling to meet these expectations.

When a digital app or service is unresponsive or slow, many consumers indicated that they are quick to stop using that app or service.

■ 86.6 percent of surveyed consumers said they are likely to temporarily switch to an alternative mobile app or website to complete their task.

■ 81.2 percent of consumers said they would wait just one minute or less for a slow or unresponsive application before leaving to use a different app or service.

■ 66.8 percent of respondents said they were likely to never use a slow or unresponsive app or service again.

Meanwhile, 87.4 percent of IT personnel said their organizations take more than five minutes to resolve IT incidents that impact consumer-facing digital services, putting them at risk of losing users.

The report also revealed that while 72.3 percent of IT practitioners believe their organization is currently equipped to support digital service offerings effectively, 67.1 percent of IT organizations said they face consumer-impacting incidents at least one or more times a week. This places organizations at constant risk of losing customers and revenue due to the length of time it takes to resolve these issues.

The Effects of Downtime on the Bottom Line

IT teams are now at the front and center of providing customers with a satisfying user experience. The report revealed that organizations are making significant upfront investments in tools and technologies that support the delivery of digital services in order to avoid costly performance issues later on. Nearly half of respondents (49.9 percent) reported that their organizations budget £500,000 or more for DevOps and ITOps tools and services to support and manage digital service offerings –– a critical investment as downtime or service degradation can significantly impact an organization's financial success.

■ Over one third of respondents (35.5 percent) said that on average, an hour of downtime costs their organization between £500,000 to £5 million.

■ 14.3 percent indicated an hour of downtime costs £5 million or more.

IT disruptions aren't just affecting the developers, DevOps or ITOps teams responsible for managing digital services performance –– the report shows that the top three non-IT departments most impacted by software issues are:

■ Sales (35.2 percent)

■ Accounting and Finance (32.9 percent)

■ Research and Development (25.4 percent)

The Right Tools, Technologies and Strategy Make Digital Transformation Possible

The report shows monitoring tools are important in helping organizations support digital service offerings effectively. The top three DevOps and ITOps tools used by IT teams to provide the insight needed to prevent disruptions in a customer's digital experience are:

■ Security monitoring (51.1 percent)

■ Infrastructure monitoring (47.9 percent)

■ Application monitoring (41.4 percent)

"In order to fully embrace digital transformation, IT teams need streamlined tools and a tight digital operations strategy," said Steve Barrett, Head of EMEA Sales at PagerDuty. "By adopting and deploying the right tools, organizations can quickly and easily resolve problems before they are customer impacting, helping protect their revenue and reputation while delivering a seamless customer experience."

The report findings are based on a two-part survey of over 300 IT practitioners and over 300 UK consumers on the impact of digital services. The surveys examined what UK consumers expect from digital experiences, how organizations are investing in supporting digital services and what tools IT teams are using to keep these services up and running.

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State of Digital Operations: IT Challenges in UK

Eric Sigler

While the majority of IT practitioners in the UK believe their organization is equipped to support digital services, over half of them also say they face consumer-impacting incidents at least one or more times a week, sometimes costing their organizations millions in lost revenue for every hour that an application is down, according to PagerDuty's State of Digital Operations Report: United Kingdom.

The report also highlighted that an organization's failure to deliver on consumer expectations for a seamless digital experience can greatly affect a company's brand reputation and bottom line.


The report found that nearly all (90.6 percent) of UK consumers surveyed use a digital application or service to complete tasks such as banking, making dinner reservations, finding transportation, grocery shopping and booking airline tickets, at least one or more times a week. This finding is indicative of the larger UK digital services landscape — IDC predicts that half of the Global 2000 enterprises will see the majority of their business depend on their ability to create and maintain digital services, products and applications by 2020. In addition, IDC says 89 percent of European organizations view digital transformation as central to their corporate strategy.

"With the rise in digital services in the UK, European businesses need to be ready to accelerate their digital transformation journey and adapt to consumer demands," said Jennifer Tejada, CEO at PagerDuty. "Disrupting brand and engagement experience means lost revenue and organizations need to be proactive versus reactive –– a reactive or automated approach to resolving consumer-facing incidents is not table stakes. Organizations can arm their IT teams by taking a holistic approach to incident response. Solutions that embrace capabilities such as machine learning and advanced response automation can help organizations easily deploy an expedited response to consumer-facing incidents."

IT Cannot Meet Consumer Expectations

The State of Digital Operations Report: United Kingdom revealed that along with the heavy reliance on digital services, UK consumers expect a seamless user experience, and IT organizations are struggling to meet these expectations.

When a digital app or service is unresponsive or slow, many consumers indicated that they are quick to stop using that app or service.

■ 86.6 percent of surveyed consumers said they are likely to temporarily switch to an alternative mobile app or website to complete their task.

■ 81.2 percent of consumers said they would wait just one minute or less for a slow or unresponsive application before leaving to use a different app or service.

■ 66.8 percent of respondents said they were likely to never use a slow or unresponsive app or service again.

Meanwhile, 87.4 percent of IT personnel said their organizations take more than five minutes to resolve IT incidents that impact consumer-facing digital services, putting them at risk of losing users.

The report also revealed that while 72.3 percent of IT practitioners believe their organization is currently equipped to support digital service offerings effectively, 67.1 percent of IT organizations said they face consumer-impacting incidents at least one or more times a week. This places organizations at constant risk of losing customers and revenue due to the length of time it takes to resolve these issues.

The Effects of Downtime on the Bottom Line

IT teams are now at the front and center of providing customers with a satisfying user experience. The report revealed that organizations are making significant upfront investments in tools and technologies that support the delivery of digital services in order to avoid costly performance issues later on. Nearly half of respondents (49.9 percent) reported that their organizations budget £500,000 or more for DevOps and ITOps tools and services to support and manage digital service offerings –– a critical investment as downtime or service degradation can significantly impact an organization's financial success.

■ Over one third of respondents (35.5 percent) said that on average, an hour of downtime costs their organization between £500,000 to £5 million.

■ 14.3 percent indicated an hour of downtime costs £5 million or more.

IT disruptions aren't just affecting the developers, DevOps or ITOps teams responsible for managing digital services performance –– the report shows that the top three non-IT departments most impacted by software issues are:

■ Sales (35.2 percent)

■ Accounting and Finance (32.9 percent)

■ Research and Development (25.4 percent)

The Right Tools, Technologies and Strategy Make Digital Transformation Possible

The report shows monitoring tools are important in helping organizations support digital service offerings effectively. The top three DevOps and ITOps tools used by IT teams to provide the insight needed to prevent disruptions in a customer's digital experience are:

■ Security monitoring (51.1 percent)

■ Infrastructure monitoring (47.9 percent)

■ Application monitoring (41.4 percent)

"In order to fully embrace digital transformation, IT teams need streamlined tools and a tight digital operations strategy," said Steve Barrett, Head of EMEA Sales at PagerDuty. "By adopting and deploying the right tools, organizations can quickly and easily resolve problems before they are customer impacting, helping protect their revenue and reputation while delivering a seamless customer experience."

The report findings are based on a two-part survey of over 300 IT practitioners and over 300 UK consumers on the impact of digital services. The surveys examined what UK consumers expect from digital experiences, how organizations are investing in supporting digital services and what tools IT teams are using to keep these services up and running.

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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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From growing reliance on FinOps teams to the increasing attention on artificial intelligence (AI), and software licensing, the Flexera 2025 State of the Cloud Report digs into how organizations are improving cloud spend efficiency, while tackling the complexities of emerging technologies ...