Businesses in Australia struggle with insufficient visibility in operational procedures and automation of infrastructure
In a recent study commissioned by ManageEngine and undertaken by Ecosystem, over 100 technology leaders, decision-makers, and key business stakeholders from Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Australia were canvassed. The study, titled "Digital Intensity in Australia Study," reveals some insightful findings about the digital transformation journeys of Australian SMEs.
One of the key findings is that SMEs in Australia are shifting to modern technology infrastructure to maintain their competitive edge. In fact, more than half of the technology leaders surveyed identified infrastructure modernisation as the primary focus of the organisation's tech modernisation strategy.
The study highlights insufficient monitoring as a critical issue, with most SMEs noting low rates of end-to-end business process (14%) and infrastructure automation (18%) monitoring. To address this, 48% of respondents are adopting additional data prioritization and filtering methods to differentiate critical alerts from noise.
IT observability, a practice that allows tech teams to proactively pinpoint root causes, spot anomalies before they disrupt service, and keep systems resilient, is gaining traction among SMEs. This shift from traditional monitoring to IT observability is driven by the need to enhance security, power resilience, maximise productivity, and reduce cost.
Tim Sheedy, principal advisor at Ecosystm, states that IT observability involves understanding systems by bringing together logs, metrics, traces, and events with advanced analytics. Srinivasa Raghavan Santhanam of ManageEngine added that the push for data-driven decision-making, due to austerity measures and growing IT requirements, has made the power of AI on a platform that enables data-driven decision-making a competitive advantage in a digital-first environment.
Despite the investments in cloud and AI, most Australian SMEs consider themselves in the early stages of their digital transformation journeys. The expanding technology architecture, characterized by a proliferation of applications and diverse cloud usage, has heightened the demand for IT support.
However, the study does not mention any new facts about the urgency for SMEs to adopt advanced technologies or the challenge of managing complex IT environments and the lack of visibility over them. Technology leaders continue to struggle with limited visibility (30%) and alert fatigue (25%) despite using IT monitoring tools/platforms.
The key concern for 52% of the organisations is cost reductions as the top business priority for the next 12 months. The results also highlight a significant barrier preventing organisations from adopting a digital-first mindset: the challenge of managing complex IT environments and the lack of visibility over them.
The study underscores the urgency for SMEs to adopt advanced technologies to ensure relevance in an evolving market. As more than 90% of Australian organisations expect up to 60 brand-new applications, tools, or platforms to be implemented in their infrastructure over the next 12 months, the need for IT observability and modern infrastructure becomes increasingly important.
Despite the challenges, it is clear that SMEs in Australia are embracing IT observability as a strategic approach to maintain their competitive edge in the digital age.
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