Observability-driven digital customer experience is make or break for enterprise businesses

The ways we work, live, travel, and communicate are undergoing large-scale changes and redefining customer expectations for organisations. This disruption is happening in all industries across the Asia Pacific (APAC) region.

We regularly witness major events such as a new phone launch for telcos, where they have to ensure a consistent, reliable experience for consumers amidst high traffic of enquiries. Another example would be the deluge of claims being received by an insurance provider following a natural disaster, such as a flood or bushfire. Consumers expect to reliably engage with organisations online and via their mobile devices, even in extraordinary circumstances.

These rapidly evolving customer expectations place unprecedented pressure on traditional enterprise organisations to match or better the digital experience of these digital natives and startups. This is made even more challenging by the need to dovetail into legacy applications, traditional IT operations and regulatory obligations. As a result, organisations are confronted with a very complex blend of systems and architectures to support a single customer interaction.

Best-in-class enterprises turn to observability

Modern organisations have moved far beyond the days of siloed IT teams sitting on endless bridge calls to solve problems. In order to drive the performance of their critical digital channels, IT teams are increasingly relying on observability to offer a detailed view on the entire technology stack. It includes the monitoring, tracking, and analysis of various components, such as servers, networks, applications, and user experiences, in real-time. An intelligent observability platform enables providers to access real-time insights, predictive analytics, and proactive issue resolution capabilities, so they can identify potential bottlenecks well before they become a problem.

Tool consolidation drives efficiency

Successful organisations are actively consolidating tools. There are always multiple monitoring and observability tools in every large organisation, but by eliminating the need to hop in and out of tools and streamlining their toolchains, organisations are able to better meet SLA and contract obligations within a smaller cost envelope. No organisation has unlimited time and resources to throw at a problem, nor can they wait for organic change.

The New Relic 2023 Observability Forecast report highlights the persistence of tool sprawl. Even though nearly half (47%) of APAC respondents prefer a single, consolidated observability platform, 61% use five or more tools - more than any other region.

The need for speed
Digitally-agile organisations take the guesswork out of decision-making and mitigate service disruptions and business risk. Observability tools should be correlating application and infrastructure data and providing insights; allowing more time to build and innovate and less time fixing. Fixing after the fact is expensive and has a huge opportunity cost on people and lost revenue. Leading observability tools do this by bringing all the data together at speed and scale; allowing issues to be resolved before they impact the customer, not hours after the fact.

Security, AI and IoT continue to shape adoption
Security and privacy are a constant concern for enterprises, with consumers having strong expectations around data management and that providers will adhere to regulations such as the Consumer Data Right (CDR) in Australia and Singapore's Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA).

The New Relic report found that an increased focus on security, governance, risk and compliance (44%) is the top observability driver here in the APAC region and that, more than any other region, the adoption of cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) are driving the need for observability.

As the complexity that sits behind the customer experience from enterprise organisations grows, so too does the need for observability. Providers operating with legacy infrastructure need to modernise rapidly to keep pace with their digital-native counterparts, and address the challenges of siloes through greater tool consolidation efforts, mitigation of service disruptions and greater investment in emerging technologies, like security, AI and IoT. As well as younger generations expecting advancements in new technologies to be embraced, such advancements are also key to reducing expensive outages and delivering best of breed digital experiences. Organisations who adopt this observability first mindset will reap the rewards, and stand to benefit greatly in a highly competitive marketplace.