Has your loyal customer just switched over to your competition?

Sonal Desai

With worldwide spending on enterprise application software to grow to 7.5 percent to reach $149.9 billion in 2015, and pegged to reach $201 billion in 2019, enterprise CIOs  have increased spends on application monitoring.

With the advent of smart phones and new apps being released per day, enterprises are finding it increasingly difficult to retain loyal customers. Some have started penning mid-term strategies with a focus on application monitoring.

Their new focus is being endorsed by research firm Gartner, which notes that long-term growth in spending will be driven primarily by modernization, functional expansion and digital transformation projects. led by marketing, e-commerce and advanced analytics software.

In lieu of these developments and the fact that application monitoring is gaining ground, we spoke to Sridhar Iyengar, Vice President, ManageEngine, on the drivers and trends.

Applications have entered the market a very big way. How is application monitoring helping organizations?

Around the world, some key applications are changing the way users work or do business. These include essential applications like Internet banking, online ticket booking, and paying bills; e-commerce applications like online shopping portals and payment vendors); business tools such as email and project management; and communication apps like instant messaging and social media. A few years ago, these applications were predominantly accessed via computer; but now they are also delivered via mobile platform.

Applications, such as the ones mentioned above, are changing the dynamics of user behavior. These apps have made life a lot easier, and helped users save their valuable time, money, and effort. It is impossible, now, to think of a future without apps.

Detailed monitoring helps organizations ensure that their business-critical applications perform effectively, at all times. By monitoring their applications and the underlying IT infrastructure, organizations can ensure that any downtime or performance problems are adequately dealt with, before they affect end-users. This, in turn, helps businesses avoid any adverse impact on their revenue, and enables them to maintain their reputation.

What are the specific trends you have observed in user behavior with regard to specific applications?

A general trend we've noticed over the years is the decrease in the patience of end-users.

The overall improvement in IT infrastructure, combined with the convergence of various technologies, has led to faster apps with richer user interfaces, providing an improved user experience. The emergence of such an experience has led to higher user expectations, especially when it comes to instantaneous responses.

This is an era where users don’t want to wait for applications to load. If the apps or websites are slow, for whatever reason, your loyal customers will not hesitate to switch over to a competitor quickly. Similarly, most users today expect a smooth experience from their applications, irrespective of whether the apps belong to the enterprise or e-tail categories.

So with advantages come pitfalls..

Yes, like two sides of every coin, even application monitoring can impact an organization's footfall, productivity and business outcomes.

For for instance footfalls. Two technologies have really revolutionized the world: namely, the cloud technology and mobile apps delivered via smart phones.

The partnership between mobile devices and cloud has enabled users to perform a variety of activities such as purchasing items, booking tickets or hotels, talking to customers, or analyzing business related data from wherever and whenever they want.

With this increased convenience, users are performing more online than physical transactions. This increased digital footprint has pushed online-enabled companies to grow their customer base far ahead of their traditional competitors.

With so much riding on these applications (both Web and mobile, it is no surprise that businesses are looking to proactively monitor these apps to ensure users have a great experience.

Similarly, the newer technologies have enabled IT teams to be more productive. They can now do more with fewer people, as the application performance monitoring tools do most of the tedious and time-consuming work.

Today’s monitoring tools gather all the data related to performance of applications and servers, analyze the data, provide valuable insights to the IT operations teams and reduce tedious manual labor.

Overall, applications today are the backbone of most businesses. When applications perform better, business invariably improves.

However, widespread adoption of technologies such as virtualization, cloud computing, and big data has complicated IT team management.

Seen in this context, the monitoring solutions used by the IT departments have also evolved. They provide better and more accurate results for troubleshooting purposes, which, in turn, enables IT teams to resolve performance issues faster, before a problem can hit the users.

As a result, businesses have been able to improve customer experience, which has contributed significantly to its revenues and customer loyalty.

What will be the three to four key trends that will drive application monitoring requirements in the next one to two years?

I foresee the following key factors that will impact the industry in the near future:

- Rapid increase in the number of mobile apps that help users perform business activities on the move, rather than just consume content.

- Increasing demand for quick insight and understanding of business impact, when measuring the app's end-user experience.

- An exponential increase in the amount of data being generated and processed by applications and services requires in-app analytics, which provide insight into application usage and user behavior patterns.

-Closer collaboration between development teams, support, and IT operations, via DevOps.