Global Study Reveals Hong Kong Businesses Miss Out on Higher Revenue and Profit Growth Due to Lack of Broad Adoption of Agile and DevOps

Hong Kong, China, May 16, 2018 /Isentia Wire/ - Global Study Reveals Hong Kong Businesses Miss Out on Higher Revenue and Profit Growth Due to Lack of Broad Adoption of Agile and DevOps

CA Technologies Sponsored Study Shows Most Companies Plagued by Similar Challenges in Culture, Skills Gaps and Leadership Alignment

CA Technologies (NASDAQ:CA) today announced results of a global study which revealed that while most Hong Kong organizations are committed to the full adoption of both agile and DevOps, many are struggling with key challenges and missing out on the extensive benefits these practices can have on their bottom line.

The study, “How Agile and DevOps Enable Digital Readiness and Transformation” found that while 70 percent of Hong Kong respondents recognize that agile and DevOps approaches drive significant business success when implemented together, only a relatively small proportion consider the consistency, depth and breadth of usage of these practices to be high.

The study showcases characteristics of ‘Agility Masters’ in Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) (the top 17 percent of APJ respondents), which are organizations that are farthest along in the full adoption and doing most or nearly all of the right things to make agile and DevOps an essential part of how they function day by day. These ‘APJ Agility Masters’ are also more likely to use agile practices across other company functions, so it is unlikely a coincidence that these organizations are seeing a 49% higher rate of revenue and 59% higher rate of profit growth, and are 2.5 times more likely than their mainstream counterparts to be growing their businesses at a rate of over 20 percent.

“The pressure is on to make all parts of an organization as flexible as possible when responding to changing customer demands, user expectations, regulatory changes and – most important of all – market opportunities,” said Stephen Miles, Chief Technology Officer, Asia Pacific Japan, CA Technologies. “Business leaders in Hong Kong need to be aggressive and intentional about driving adoption of agile and DevOps within their organizations. This business agility allows Hong Kong to respond rapidly to changes in the internal and external environment, which contributes to business success.”

It’s Not All About Technology and Process: The People Perspective
The study also found that organizations are plagued by similar challenges: culture, skills, program investment and leadership alignment. The research highlights a widespread recognition that implementing agile and DevOps practices across the software lifecycle is not just a matter of new skills and working patterns. For some, it also requires a significant shift in mindset and behavior and making those changes is very much a people issue – even at the executive level. Top priorities to improve effectiveness identified by Hong Kong respondents include:

#8226; Utilize more modern tools to facilitate effective agile and DevOps (80 percent)
#8226; Need a better definition of metrics to assess the impact on the business (79 percent)
#8226; Obtain more support and commitment from management at all levels (78 percent)
#8226; Train IT teams on how to collaborate and incorporate best practices into their day-to-day jobs (77 percent)
#8226; Improve the culture of the organization so it encourages and rewards collaboration (74 percent)
#8226; Relieve time pressures so teams can implement agile and DevOps effectively (74 percent)

Hong Kong respondents also found it very difficult or challenging to find professionals that had experience with DevOps (84 percent), were familiar with agile methods (82 percent) and/or had data analytical skills (81 percent). This clearly indicates a skills gap for the majority of organizations, which requires resources, especially training, to be made available.

“Raising the capability of the engineering team through a well-crafted careers development program will allow us to continue to recruit and retain high caliber individuals,” said a Chief Architect/CTO of a retail business interviewed for the study.

Connecting Execution to Business Outcomes
The connection between agile, DevOps and business outcomes centers around the continuous feedback loop running through live customer experiences to requirements engineering – showing how well software delivery is performing and supporting the business itself. To further reap the benefits of agile and DevOps, organizations must also leverage the responsiveness and flexibility offered by cloud, containers and other new code design and delivery architectures, with a smooth shift-left of all activities – such as continuous testing – and finer granularity of iteration across the whole of the software delivery and ops cycle.

Resources
#8226; Report: How Agile and DevOps enable digital readiness and transformation
#8226; Infographic
#8226; SlideShare: Break Away with Agile and DevOps

Survey Methodology
The global online survey of 1,279 senior IT and business executives (575 in seven APJ countries including China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Australia) was sponsored by CA Technologies and conducted by industry analyst firm Freeform Dynamics. It was augmented by in-depth telephone interviews with key industry executives. For full survey methodology details, please see the report, "How Agile and DevOps enable digital readiness and transformation."

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About Freeform Dynamics
Freeform Dynamics is an IT industry analyst firm. Through research and insights, the firm aims to help busy IT and business professionals get up to speed on the latest technology developments, and make better-informed investment decisions. For more information, and access to a library of free research, please visit www.freeformdynamics.com.

About CA Technologies
CA Technologies (NASDAQ:CA) creates software that fuels transformation for companies and enables them to seize the opportunities of the application economy. Software is at the heart of every business in every industry. From planning, to development, to management and security, CA is working with companies worldwide to change the way we live, transact, and communicate – across mobile, private and public cloud, distributed and mainframe environments. Learn more at www.ca.com.

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