Efficiency is the name of the game for IT leaders

The current economic landscape has been a cause for concern across many industries and, as a result, businesses are looking for any and all ways to be more efficient and optimized.

Rocket Software recently conducted a survey of U.S.-based IT directors and vice presidents in companies with more than 1,000 employees and found that due to the economic landscape, 62% of IT leaders have a much greater focus on efficiency today than ever before. They’re finding ways to work that maximize resources, including time, money, and manpower.

As IT leaders feel pressure from the C-Suite to be more efficient, as well as cut costs and optimize resources, respondents of the survey ranked faster DevOps processes, automated processes, and increasing overall output as the top three measures that would be most impactful to increasing efficiency.

Faster DevOps processes

DevOps tools increase efficiency by helping eliminate the siloes between the development and operations teams, empowering IT teams to evolve and improve products at a faster pace than those using traditional software development. DevOps helps with automating workflows, reducing errors, increasing productivity, and fulfilling compliance requirements—all while meeting the needs of an organization’s specific environment.

Fifty-eight percent of IT leaders from Rocket Software’s survey consider DevOps to be a top priority. The benefits of DevOps include increased speed, improved collaboration, and the ability to scale with ease. Web and mobile developers typically follow agile practices, and many focus on continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD). It is critical that DevOps supports these multiple ways of working to be the most efficient.  

Automated processes 

The goal when implementing automation into IT processes is to reduce the amount of human time spent on repetitive, manual tasks, and enable employees to focus on creative, strategic work that only humans can do. In Rocket Software’s survey, 57% of respondents said automation is a top priority.

Enterprises are often working with and storing vast amounts of data, so effective processes for accessing and handling this information are critical for overall efficiency. Automation can be used to help all members of a company, regardless of IT prowess, understand and leverage data with minimal effort and time. Incorporating automation reduces the workloads of IT professionals, improves data usability for C-Suite execs, and streamlines overall workflows across the organization. When asked where their greatest need for tools is to help modernize their IT infrastructure, 22% of respondents from Rocket Software’s survey said automation with legacy applications, and 17% said workload automation and orchestration.  

Increase overall outputs

By definition, increasing efficiency is about increasing overall output with the same resources. DevOps and automation are tools to get there. The ability to produce more within the same time and budget is an obvious indicator of increased efficiency. But in the current economic landscape, organizations need to think about what that output is and who it’s going to—such as customers.

Modernization tools allow enterprises to serve their customers with maximized efficiency and this competitive advantage contributes to client retention, as end users also value optimized use of their time and resources. This strategy of retention allows companies to best weather the economic uncertainty and emerge on the other side with minimal damage.

While prioritizing maintaining existing customer relationships, 52% of IT leaders said they manage customer relationship management (CRM) systems on their mainframe. Hence, mainframe efficiency is crucial for the optimal customer relationships needed to retain business.

IT leaders prioritize efficiency 

Organizations need a competitive advantage. To do so, they need to prioritize efficiency, and the IT leaders surveyed agreed: 71% said increased efficiency is the number one measurement of success within IT organizations.

Learn how Rocket Software helps IT organizations be more efficient by modernizing without disruption.