DevOps is the key to improving customer service alongside digitalisation
Staying competitive in the era of digitalisation is not just about adopting the latest technology, but involves harmonising the numerous digital operations across an organisation to ensure customer satisfaction. This is according to a new report from KPMG, which terms such an internal alignment as DevOps.
The report comes at a time when digital transformation is the biggest priority for firms across the Indian business environment. Much like the rest of the world, India is digitalising rapidly, and a variety of new technology is revolutionising the business environment, even amongst sectors that are not traditionally technology reliant.
As organisations look to adopt the latest technology and remain competitive in such a scenario, they run the risk of investing substantial sums of money without any returns. Failure to reap benefits stems from the skewed prioritisation of quantity over quality of digital transformation.
An Accenture report form last year revealed that a number of Indian firms are implementing new technology, and are thereafter prioritising digital expansion over the optimisation of their current digital tools. KPMG’s DevOps report looks to address the customer experience dimension of this scenario.
According to KPMG, ascending to the top of the market is a question of having a well-defined technology strategy, which should become the priority for Chief Information Officers and Chief Technological Officers across India. The firm has conducted a survey amongst businesses to determine the status of DevOps in the country.
The survey garnered responses from 100 firms from a variety of sectors across the country. And found a number of common themes. For instance, the survey revealed that at the initial stages before a product is launched in the market, DevOps is high among the priorities of a number of firms.
Once the product is launched, the firm found that an increasing portion of businesses have begun to leverage DevOps when delivering products. This is particularly true of Global In-House Centres, where most firms are looking to align their digital transformation efforts to match DevOps principles.
One finding of the report that would offer encouragement to the consulting industry is that a growing portion of firms across the country are also looking outwards for support in developing their DevOps strategies, with the primary objective of ensuring that their business and technology remain aligned.
The report also finds that the platforms and applications being leveraged for DevOps have increased substantially in terms of sophistication, allowing for a more expansive array of operations to be coordinated and integrated. Nevertheless, most of these findings are concentrated amongst the larger firms in the economy.
In terms of individual sectors, the report finds that the financial services sector has the highest rate of adoption of DevOps frameworks. As Fintech comprises an increasing share of financial services operations, the differentiating factor amongst banks has become the quality of their customer management strategies. Other sectors that have been actively adopting DevOps strategies include telecom & media, retail & ecommerce, manufacturing and healthcare, among others.
“DevOps has the strength to not only bring about technological advances by early simulation of events, much like the genome study, but also impacts greatly the ways of working, the organisation structure and, in many cases, determining the date of the products and services,” said the report.
