Rapid DevOps implementation across APAC: CA Tech survey

• APAC adoption already on par with Europe, catching up with the Americas
• Nine factors that help make it twice as likely to achieve business growth

 
A MAJORITY (69%) of organisations in Asia Pacific have implemented DevOps, software delivery practices that stress better communication and collaboration between development and operations teams.
 
In fact, 15% of these DevOps practitioners have already reached advanced levels of adoption, according to the results of a new global study commissioned by CA Technologies.
 
The study, titled Assembling the DevOps Jigsaw, found that advanced DevOps adopters were more likely to report that their digital initiatives contributed to competitiveness, customer retention and top- and bottom-line results, the company said in a statement.
 
Across the globe, organisations with DevOps maturity were twice as likely to have seen a positive impact on revenue growth and 2.4 times more likely to have experienced higher profit growth.
 
In Asia Pacific, compared with those who have not implemented DevOps, advanced adopters were:
 

• Three times more likely to have seen progress on market share;

• 2.3 times more likely to have seen improvements in customer profitability;

• 2.2 times more likely to have seen improvements in customer retention;

• 2.2 times more likely to have seen new income streams; and

• Twice more likely to have seen improvements in customer acquisition.

“DevOps adoption across Asia Pacific is growing fast; it is already on par with Europe and getting very close to the Americas,” said Ashok Vasan, vice president of Application Delivery, Asia Pacific & Japan, CA Technologies.
 
“However, companies could do more to advance their level of adoption. To fully harness the potential of DevOps, organisations need to skill-up IT and ensure that the necessary enablers are in place to support collaboration and continuous innovation,” he added.
 
To maximise DevOps effectiveness, there are nine key factors required though few have actually done all of them, based on feedback from respondents in the study (click infographic on the left to view in full).
 

• For example, even though DevOps is seen as a key component to driving business agility and keeping up with customer demands, only a little over half (52%) of the respondents who have implemented DevOps in APJ have well-defined DevOps strategies and objectives.

• Also, with 44% of DevOps practitioners in the region still working on security and compliance, most DevOps activities are still not well supported from an enabling platform and risk management perspective.

• Furthermore, while 87% of Asia Pacific respondents considered business stakeholder education to be important, and 85% recognised the importance of ensuring adequate knowledge of business priorities within IT, only 31% of adopters in Asia Pacific have completed these steps.

• Successfully fostering teamwork remains a significant barrier to DevOps success. Respondents in Asia Pacific found the breaking down of cultural barriers between Dev and Ops teams to be the most challenging task, with a mere 26% having achieved cultural harmony within IT.

Besides the above factors, cross functional IT processes, relevant IT knowledge and skills, right infrastructure and tooling, and right suppliers and support are the other four pieces to assemble an amazing DevOps practice, CA Technologies said.
 
Assembling all of the pieces of the DevOps jigsaw puzzle undeniably requires time, effort and careful planning, but the results are worth it, the company argued.
 
With overall DevOps adoption already on an upward trend in Asia Pacific, and practitioners eager to improve, organisations are certainly making steady progress and the future of DevOps in the region looks to be a promising one, it added.
 
Survey methodology
 
The global online survey of 1,442 senior IT and business executives was sponsored by CA Technologies and conducted by industry analyst firm Freeform Dynamics in July 2015.
 
It was augmented by in-depth telephone interviews with key industry executives. Note that DevOps adoption rates may skew higher due to self-selection bias in the sample.
 
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