Two in five ANZ companies are alerted to major technology issues via customers – a report on the impact of outages and IT disruption finds

PagerDuty, Inc. (NYSE:PD), a global leader in digital operations management, has released the State of Unplanned Work Report 2020 today. The report uncovers the challenges that businesses and teams face when time-critical, unplanned work arises, putting the role of digital operations management at the forefront of the customer experience conversation. 

The report[1] found that over two in five (42%) businesses discover major technology issues from their customers, indicating that many companies are reacting to incidents after they have already had a negative impact. Additionally, these unplanned issues are highly prevalent, with nearly one in three (29%) businesses experiencing major technology issues at least weekly.

Jonathan Rende, Senior Vice President Product at PagerDuty, said, “The world is always on. Increasingly complex IT ecosystems and rising customer expectations are extremely difficult to manage. When delays, downtimes or outages occur, it not only diverts resources away from critical projects but it often has far-reaching consequences such as lost customers and revenue, reputational damage and employee impact.

“Customer experience is the new competitive battleground for business. Responding to major technology issues once customers have already been affected not only impacts revenue, it also creates unnecessary stress for employees,” said Jonathan.

Unplanned work hurts culture and retention

The report found that unplanned work due to major technology issues resulted in the following impacts on employees:

• 59% said it resulted in more stress and anxiety
• 53% said it reduced their work-life balance and 22% said it resulted in health issues
• 31% said it resulted in more mistakes
• 27% said it resulted in decreased interest in their jobs 

Most companies are unprepared for unplanned work

Over half (52%) of respondents said that they have experienced a major technology issue that was not covered by their company’s documented response plan.

30% of businesses have no automation in place for resolving major technology issues, while over half (55%) said just a few of the actions are automated; 13% said most of the actions are automated; and a surprisingly small 2% said the entire process is automated.

When commenting on the startling statistics of businesses in ANZ being unprepared with little or no automation in place, Jonathan said, “Technology problems are business problems. It is now more important than ever for a company to solve problems and find opportunities in real-time. Software developers are market makers and a customer’s digital experience defines a company’s success. When teams aren’t able to innovate quickly, companies are more exposed to competitive threats.”

According to the report, more than two in three, or 67%, of technology employees will lose more than 100 hours of productivity due to unplanned work in 2020. Inefficiencies in managing major technology issues on a regular basis is having a significant impact on employee morale, with nearly one in three surveyed, or 30%, saying they have considered leaving a job due to too much unplanned work.

According to Jonathan, “Having an automated, digital operations management platform that is underpinned by machine learning is critical today. It allows companies to bring the right people together in real-time to enable businesses to quickly orchestrate a response, stop the finger pointing and spend more time innovating and enhancing their customers’ experiences.”

Additional report findings for ANZ

• More than one in two (55%) stated that resources are routinely diverted to unplanned work, while three in four (75%) said unplanned work is an inhibitor to innovation 
• 25% said that major technology issues result in a damaged brand and 35% reported compliance problems as a result 
• 68% said that major technology issues result in extra work and 61% reported that major tech issues lead to unhappy customers 
• 38% said that there is increasing customer expectations around convenience and performance, while 43% reported increasingly complex IT environments are making it more difficult to provide a great customer experience

[1] PagerDuty’s State of Unplanned Work Report 2020 surveyed a total of 507 participants that are responsible for technology issue response and resolution. Participants were from Asia Pacific countries, including 56% (284) respondents from Australia and New Zealand.