The 2023 ITOps forecast
Tech faced many challenges in 2022. ITOps, NOC, and SRE teams grappled with shifts in staffing, the disappearance of tribal knowledge, the continuing transformation of consumer spending habits, and a general disruption of workplace culture. So, what will 2023 look like for the industry? There will likely be more volatility, but our panel of industry experts is here to help you navigate the choppy waters while also making some bold predictions.
Change is the only constant in the tech sector.
BigPanda VP of Product Marketing Mohan Kompella and VP of Alliances and Channels Joe Schramm join with Blackrock3 Partners’ Rob Schnepp and Craig Ginsberg from AppDynamics (part of Cisco Systems) to discuss the ins and outs of their predictions for the future of ITOps in the coming year.
The ITOps landscape is quickly changing
The rise of new technologies has grown immensely in the past few years, and this is only predicted to continue for 2023. Companies scaled during the pandemic due to a shift in consumer behavior, and many companies had to pivot their ITOps strategies. As we all adjust to this new normal, many organizations are faced with the prospect of having everything go to the cloud and others are trying to make sense of the balance of their currently hybrid architectures.
Inefficiencies that existed before the pandemic were exposed to greater levels of scrutiny as more and more pressure was placed on ITOps teams to perform and limit incidents and outages. In the past, organizations might have been OK waiting months or years to see new technology pay off. According to Mohan, these days “the customers are no longer going to say, ‘let’s deploy this thing for 18 months and then let’s see what kind of value we get 18 months after that.’ Now it’s all about, “How quickly can I see value for my investment?’”
In terms of complexity, the ITOps landscape is the most complicated it’s ever been. Some of the instability of ITOps is a result of organizations attempting to scale to keep pace, a past trend that has some serious implications for 2023:
ITOps predictions for the future
Looking at 2023, our panel had many predictions and suggestions for the year.
Continued growth in automation
Automation is becoming a fundamental part of the future of ITOps, in part due to staffing challenges as organizations attempt to scale. With many companies predicted to continue to be on unsteady footing in 2023 when it comes to the labor market, IT operations and the organization’s operational maturity are going to be challenged by that. Organizations are seeing a fundamental shift in IT interest and spend toward solutions that can automate processes as a solution for more growth.
Just hiring more personnel to tackle a problem has become unsustainable, and moving people instead to more higher-value opportunities has taken off this year already. Mohan explains, “The economy is going to be a forcing function to drive significant automation this year. [Automation] was always a nice-to-have, and people always want to do it. But now that the economy is where it is—and likely where it might be—the tolerance for really long time-to-value cycles is going to be dramatically cut short.” A lot of companies are looking for technological solutions like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) instead of more workforce for the purpose of scaling. We predict automation will grow even more than it already has in 2023.
Increase in technical debt
Another topic that will heavily influence ITOps in 2023 is the issue of staffing and labor and how that affects technical debt. There have been two big upheavals in tech in recent years: the great resignation and layoffs. With the potential loss of knowledge surrounding systems and functions of a department, the incidences of technical debt (the additional resources it takes to rework something rather than originally choosing a better solution) will most likely be higher. Technical debt affects ITOps teams by taking away resources that could be used for other projects or adding to the already-growing amount of noise they have to deal with on a regular basis. Having a tech stack that works and focusing on what your team does really well is a good way to combat the issue of technical debt.
User experience is becoming critically important
The importance of digital customer experience and expectations in a post-pandemic, e-commerce focused world is paramount for 2023. Our panelists concluded that every organization’s success or failure will now depend on the digital experience they provide to their customers. For the end user, the digital experience can make or break an organization’s success. According to Joe, “you could build the best piece of technology, but if it is not providing an intuitive user experience that is readily and easily adopted, people won’t take advantage of the technology… user experience is becoming critically important.”
Learn how to get started with AIOps today
To learn more about AIOps, some of the common issues many organizations encounter, and how to get started, take a self-guided tour of the BigPanda platform.
