Agile and DevOps drives happier customers and employees

In today’s fiercely competitive environment for customer satisfaction and brand loyalty, agile and DevOps are driving happier customers and employees. Results from a new CA Technologies global study reveal that advanced users of agile or DevOps realized significant increases of up to 52 per cent in customer satisfaction and up to 50 per cent in employee productivity.

The results showed a 30-per cent advantage in employee recruitment and retention for companies that used agile and DevOps together to improve the working atmosphere for their employees. In total, 74 per cent of the respondents who added DevOps to agile implementations reported improvements in employee recruitment and retention versus 57 per cent for agile-only users. When combining agile and DevOps practices, users also reported an increase of 45 per cent in employee productivity, compared to those only using agile. Further, respondents found that adding DevOps practices to an agile working environment:

·         Improved customer satisfaction by an additional 29 per cent; and

·         78 per cent of users who paired agile and DevOps reported an increase in customer experience, versus only 58 per cent of agile-only users.

With 81 per cent of executives confirming that agile and DevOps are critical to successful digital transformation, the study showed that both practices resulted in significant business benefits, and that together, they enhanced  the positive impact even further.

·         Improved new business growth by 63 per cent more;

·         Increased operational efficiency by an additional 41 per cent; and

·         Improved IT-related costs by an additional 65 per cent than agile-only environments.

“We are making a direct correlation between the technology and tools that we use in the development to real business benefits,” said Jeff Scheaffer, General Manager, Continuous Delivery, CA Technologies. “Pairing the DevOps paradigm with agile practices gives organizations of all sizes a competitive advantage with increases in employee productivity and satisfaction that is resulting in a loyal customer base.”

While more than four in five businesses are using each of these practices to some degree, a “maturity gap” remains with only a third having deployed either practice widely across the organization, according to the study. The wider benefits available to the surveyed businesses that embraced these practices across the organization experienced:

·         A 40-per cent improvement in time-to-decision (the time-to-act on new opportunities) for advanced agile users, compared to 33 per cent for basic users.

·         A 42-per cent improvement in speed-to-market, for advanced DevOps users compared to 24 per cent for basic users.

·         88 per cent of advanced agile adopters, and 87 per cent of advanced DevOps users witnessed an improvement in customer experience.

“Today’s competitive market requires that organizations take steps to expand and embed their use of agile and DevOps across the enterprise,” said Angela Tucci, General Manager, Agile Management, CA Technologies. “The results are clear – embracing a combined approach reduces cycle times and makes sure that execution is aligned to strategy, ultimately for customer benefit.”