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Top CIO Challenges: IT Complexity and Managing IT Performance

Digital transformation, migration to the enterprise cloud and increasing customer demands are creating a surge in IT complexity and the associated costs of managing it. Technical leaders around the world are concerned about the effect this has on IT performance and ultimately, their business according to a new report from Dynatrace, based on an independent global survey of 800 CIOs, Top Challenges for CIOs in a Software-Driven, Hybrid, Multi-Cloud World.

CIO responses to the survey indicate that lost revenue (49%) and reputational damage (52%) are among the biggest concerns as businesses transform into software businesses and move to the cloud.

And, as CIOs struggle to prevent these concerns from becoming reality, IT teams now spend 33% of their time dealing with digital performance problems, costing businesses an average of $3.3 million annually, compared to $2.5 million in 2018; an increase of 34%. To combat this, 88% of CIOs say AI will be critical to IT’s ability to master increasing complexity.

Software is Transforming Every Business

Every company, in every industry, is transforming into a software business. The way enterprises interact with customers, assure quality experiences and optimize revenues is driven by applications and the hybrid, multi-cloud environments underpinning them. Success or failure comes down to the software supporting these efforts. The pressure of this "run-the-business" software performing properly has significant ramifications for IT professionals.

According to the survey:

■ 44% of CIOs fear there could be a threat to the existence of their business if they are unable to manage IT performance.

■ As complexity continues to grow, 74% of CIOs say it could soon become extremely difficult to manage performance efficiently.


Enterprise "Cloud-First" Strategies Increase Complexity

Underpinning this software revolution is the enterprise cloud, allowing companies to innovate faster and better meet the needs of customers. The enterprise cloud is dynamic, hybrid, multi-cloud, and web-scale, containing hundreds of technologies, millions of lines of code and billions of dependencies. However, this transformation isn’t simply about lifting and shifting apps to the cloud, it’s a fundamental shift in how applications are built, deployed and operated.

According to the survey:

■ The majority of CIOs are already using or are planning to deploy microservices (88%), containers (86%), serverless computing (85%), PaaS (89%), SaaS (94%), IaaS (91%) and private cloud (95%) in the next 12 months.

■ The average mobile or web application transaction crosses 37 different technology systems or components. This brings an inherent increase in IT complexity, making it harder for organizations to manage performance.

The Age of the Customer Increases Pressure to Deliver Great Experiences

We are squarely in the age of the customer, where high quality service is paramount due to the ease with which customers will try competitive offerings and share their experiences instantly via social media.

The research highlights the extent to which businesses are struggling to combat IT complexity that threatens the customer experience, with CIOs revealing: on average, organizations have suffered 6 IT outages where user-experiences, business revenues or operations were impacted in the last 12 months.

IT Teams Are Feeling the Strain

Digital transformation, migration to the enterprise cloud and increasing customer demands are collectively putting pressure on IT teams, who continue to feel the strain, especially as it relates to performance. Revealing the extent of this dilemma, key findings of the research also show that:

■ More than three quarters of CIOs (76%) say they don’t have complete visibility into application performance in cloud-native architectures.

■ 78% of CIOs are frustrated that so much time is spent setting up monitoring for different cloud environments when deploying new services.

■ IT teams now spend around 33% of their time tackling performance problems.


Exploring the potential antidote to these challenges, the research further reveals that 88% of CIOs say that they believe AI will be critical to IT’s ability to master increasing complexity.

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Top CIO Challenges: IT Complexity and Managing IT Performance

Digital transformation, migration to the enterprise cloud and increasing customer demands are creating a surge in IT complexity and the associated costs of managing it. Technical leaders around the world are concerned about the effect this has on IT performance and ultimately, their business according to a new report from Dynatrace, based on an independent global survey of 800 CIOs, Top Challenges for CIOs in a Software-Driven, Hybrid, Multi-Cloud World.

CIO responses to the survey indicate that lost revenue (49%) and reputational damage (52%) are among the biggest concerns as businesses transform into software businesses and move to the cloud.

And, as CIOs struggle to prevent these concerns from becoming reality, IT teams now spend 33% of their time dealing with digital performance problems, costing businesses an average of $3.3 million annually, compared to $2.5 million in 2018; an increase of 34%. To combat this, 88% of CIOs say AI will be critical to IT’s ability to master increasing complexity.

Software is Transforming Every Business

Every company, in every industry, is transforming into a software business. The way enterprises interact with customers, assure quality experiences and optimize revenues is driven by applications and the hybrid, multi-cloud environments underpinning them. Success or failure comes down to the software supporting these efforts. The pressure of this "run-the-business" software performing properly has significant ramifications for IT professionals.

According to the survey:

■ 44% of CIOs fear there could be a threat to the existence of their business if they are unable to manage IT performance.

■ As complexity continues to grow, 74% of CIOs say it could soon become extremely difficult to manage performance efficiently.


Enterprise "Cloud-First" Strategies Increase Complexity

Underpinning this software revolution is the enterprise cloud, allowing companies to innovate faster and better meet the needs of customers. The enterprise cloud is dynamic, hybrid, multi-cloud, and web-scale, containing hundreds of technologies, millions of lines of code and billions of dependencies. However, this transformation isn’t simply about lifting and shifting apps to the cloud, it’s a fundamental shift in how applications are built, deployed and operated.

According to the survey:

■ The majority of CIOs are already using or are planning to deploy microservices (88%), containers (86%), serverless computing (85%), PaaS (89%), SaaS (94%), IaaS (91%) and private cloud (95%) in the next 12 months.

■ The average mobile or web application transaction crosses 37 different technology systems or components. This brings an inherent increase in IT complexity, making it harder for organizations to manage performance.

The Age of the Customer Increases Pressure to Deliver Great Experiences

We are squarely in the age of the customer, where high quality service is paramount due to the ease with which customers will try competitive offerings and share their experiences instantly via social media.

The research highlights the extent to which businesses are struggling to combat IT complexity that threatens the customer experience, with CIOs revealing: on average, organizations have suffered 6 IT outages where user-experiences, business revenues or operations were impacted in the last 12 months.

IT Teams Are Feeling the Strain

Digital transformation, migration to the enterprise cloud and increasing customer demands are collectively putting pressure on IT teams, who continue to feel the strain, especially as it relates to performance. Revealing the extent of this dilemma, key findings of the research also show that:

■ More than three quarters of CIOs (76%) say they don’t have complete visibility into application performance in cloud-native architectures.

■ 78% of CIOs are frustrated that so much time is spent setting up monitoring for different cloud environments when deploying new services.

■ IT teams now spend around 33% of their time tackling performance problems.


Exploring the potential antidote to these challenges, the research further reveals that 88% of CIOs say that they believe AI will be critical to IT’s ability to master increasing complexity.

The Latest

AI is the catalyst for significant investment in data teams as enterprises require higher-quality data to power their AI applications, according to the State of Analytics Engineering Report from dbt Labs ...

Misaligned architecture can lead to business consequences, with 93% of respondents reporting negative outcomes such as service disruptions, high operational costs and security challenges ...

A Gartner analyst recently suggested that GenAI tools could create 25% time savings for network operational teams. Where might these time savings come from? How are GenAI tools helping NetOps teams today, and what other tasks might they take on in the future as models continue improving? In general, these savings come from automating or streamlining manual NetOps tasks ...

IT and line-of-business teams are increasingly aligned in their efforts to close the data gap and drive greater collaboration to alleviate IT bottlenecks and offload growing demands on IT teams, according to The 2025 Automation Benchmark Report: Insights from IT Leaders on Enterprise Automation & the Future of AI-Driven Businesses from Jitterbit ...

A large majority (86%) of data management and AI decision makers cite protecting data privacy as a top concern, with 76% of respondents citing ROI on data privacy and AI initiatives across their organization, according to a new Harris Poll from Collibra ...

According to Gartner, Inc. the following six trends will shape the future of cloud over the next four years, ultimately resulting in new ways of working that are digital in nature and transformative in impact ...

2020 was the equivalent of a wedding with a top-shelf open bar. As businesses scrambled to adjust to remote work, digital transformation accelerated at breakneck speed. New software categories emerged overnight. Tech stacks ballooned with all sorts of SaaS apps solving ALL the problems — often with little oversight or long-term integration planning, and yes frequently a lot of duplicated functionality ... But now the music's faded. The lights are on. Everyone from the CIO to the CFO is checking the bill. Welcome to the Great SaaS Hangover ...

Regardless of OpenShift being a scalable and flexible software, it can be a pain to monitor since complete visibility into the underlying operations is not guaranteed ... To effectively monitor an OpenShift environment, IT administrators should focus on these five key elements and their associated metrics ...

An overwhelming majority of IT leaders (95%) believe the upcoming wave of AI-powered digital transformation is set to be the most impactful and intensive seen thus far, according to The Science of Productivity: AI, Adoption, And Employee Experience, a new report from Nexthink ...

Overall outage frequency and the general level of reported severity continue to decline, according to the Outage Analysis 2025 from Uptime Institute. However, cyber security incidents are on the rise and often have severe, lasting impacts ...