Smart businesses are always looking for ways to be more productive and cost effective by leveraging industry trends. Serena surveyed IT professionals and business executives in late 2012 on what they viewed as their top IT priorities for 2013. You may be surprised at the results!
The results of our third survey - conducted at Gartner’s recent Application Architecture, Development and Integration (AADI) Summit (for 2011 and 2012 we polled executives attending the ADDI Summit on the same questions) - revealed delivering applications faster and aligning IT to business goals were the highest ranked IT priorities for 2013.
These findings underscore the trend that online enterprises have elevated themselves past departmental IT concerns. Instead, the results show they are now focusing on the competitive goals of the business itself. In fact, in contrast to the last two years where it was one of the lowest rated priorities, aligning IT to business goals was this year’s second highest priority.
It’s interesting to see a contrasting shift in IT priorities, as both reducing application costs and moving applications to the Cloud were reported much less of a priority in 2013 compared to 2012. Both of which fell multiple spots on the one to ten number scale of priority.
The 2013 survey also uncovered that release management continues to be a major challenge, especially important due to IT’s priority of meeting the increasing demands from the business. Almost two-thirds of the respondents reported they release more applications, yet feel the process is less than optimal. In fact, 11 percent reported more than five times the number of releases than last year. Another 47 percent reported they are actively improving their release management systems.
The survey also covered top Application Development initiatives for 2013. For the third year in a row, managing applications as a business process came in as the most important initiative for the coming year. End-to-end traceability and application development tool integration remain unchanged from last year’s survey, coming in at number two and three respectively. While priorities have shifted over the last two years from cost-focused to business-focused, the research shows a process-based approach remains paramount for IT success.
Other survey results revealed:
- 59 percent of respondents cited delivering applications faster as the top application development priority in 2013
- 48 percent cited better alignment to business needs as the top priority, more than double the percentage of last year’s survey
- 62 percent of respondents cited managing application development as a business process as “very important to extremely important” to their organization
- 61 percent said having end-to-end traceability (from code in production back to the business requirements) is “very important to extremely important”
- 36 percent cited developing mobile applications as an important development priority in 2013.
Almost 100 participated in the survey – many senior level IT executives from financial services, public sector, IT services and healthcare organizations.
Do you agree with these 2013 priorities? What are your priorities for this year? I would love to hear your thoughts. Clich here to email me: Miguel Tam
ABOUT Miguel Tam
Miguel Tam is Serena Software’s Senior Product Marketing Manger. Tam has over 20 years of experience in the enterprise software and manufacturing space, helping high-tech, cleantech, and services firms launch successful new products. He has deep expertise in software development practices and new product development, including experience at Oracle, CA Technologies, and Ernst & Young Consulting.
Related Links:
Infographic summarizing the survey findings
Application Architecture, Development and Integration (AADI) Summit
The Latest
Over the last 20 years Digital Employee Experience has become a necessity for companies committed to digital transformation and improving IT experiences. In fact, by 2025, more than 50% of IT organizations will use digital employee experience to prioritize and measure digital initiative success ...
While most companies are now deploying cloud-based technologies, the 2024 Secure Cloud Networking Field Report from Aviatrix found that there is a silent struggle to maximize value from those investments. Many of the challenges organizations have faced over the past several years have evolved, but continue today ...
In our latest research, Cisco's The App Attention Index 2023: Beware the Application Generation, 62% of consumers report their expectations for digital experiences are far higher than they were two years ago, and 64% state they are less forgiving of poor digital services than they were just 12 months ago ...
In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 5, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses the network source of truth ...
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 ...
In 2024 the number one challenge facing IT teams is a lack of skilled workers, and many are turning to automation as an answer, according to IT Trends: 2024 Industry Report ...
Organizations are continuing to embrace multicloud environments and cloud-native architectures to enable rapid transformation and deliver secure innovation. However, despite the speed, scale, and agility enabled by these modern cloud ecosystems, organizations are struggling to manage the explosion of data they create, according to The state of observability 2024: Overcoming complexity through AI-driven analytics and automation strategies, a report from Dynatrace ...
Organizations recognize the value of observability, but only 10% of them are actually practicing full observability of their applications and infrastructure. This is among the key findings from the recently completed Logz.io 2024 Observability Pulse Survey and Report ...
Businesses must adopt a comprehensive Internet Performance Monitoring (IPM) strategy, says Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), a leading IT analyst research firm. This strategy is crucial to bridge the significant observability gap within today's complex IT infrastructures. The recommendation is particularly timely, given that 99% of enterprises are expanding their use of the Internet as a primary connectivity conduit while facing challenges due to the inefficiency of multiple, disjointed monitoring tools, according to Modern Enterprises Must Boost Observability with Internet Performance Monitoring, a new report from EMA and Catchpoint ...
Choosing the right approach is critical with cloud monitoring in hybrid environments. Otherwise, you may drive up costs with features you don’t need and risk diminishing the visibility of your on-premises IT ...
