Building a business case for a DevOps platform

If you’re motivated by the many DevOps benefits you can bring to your business, you’re not alone. DevOps implementation has gathered pace in the last few years. DevOps agile business strategies and close collaboration between development and operations can hugely positively affect your business.

Although before undertaking dramatic transformations to leverage DevOps in your organisation, you and any other decision-makers will want to know if it’s worth the risk. Here are some of the ways DevOps implementation can have a positive impact on your business.

Rapid deployment. DevOps strategies enable businesses to deploy new processes, applications and systems much faster. Close collaboration and task automation — two important drivers in DevOps speed up deployment and drive efficiency across business operations. Faster deployment enables you to consistently improve business timing for delivering results.

Faster problem-solving. DevOps processes enable businesses to solve problems at a much faster pace. The time spent solving problems takes resources away from other, more meaningful tasks, resulting in business losses. The faster you can solve issues when they arise, the faster you can resume business as usual, and your teams can get back on track with their roles and responsibilities.

Increased innovation. DevOps streamlines processes and improves business efficiency, so your teams will have more time allocated to innovation. Your teams can spend time developing new ideas, improving processes and focusing on innovation. Innovation is key to business expansion, so the more time you can free up in this area, the more likely your business will grow.

Better team morale. DevOps support better collaboration and communication methods, which helps improve and strengthen relationships and bonds within teams. Being part of a strong, connected team helps employees feel more connected, happier and motivated. In relation to the business, a happier, more motivated workforce greatly impacts productivity. A happy workforce is more productive and can flourish in their roles and responsibilities. It also encourages creativity and innovation within the workplace.

Improved Customer Experience. DevOps solutions enable you to deliver updates faster and less disruptively, so you can better serve customers and end users. This will increase the positive experience for the end user or customer, which will ultimately drive profits and business revenue.

The right tools will enable you to collect data from all your tools meaningfully. Using this data, you can budget, plan and report on your business. The opposite of this is tools that function independently; they do not share data or work with other computer data processing systems. Otherwise known as disparate tools. But what is the impact of disparate tools? Disparate tools can cost a business considerably, from hindering efficiency to impacting data accuracy. Here are a few examples of the significant costs involved.

1. Efficiency

Your developers can quickly become overwhelmed by lengthy, disjointed processes. This often results in neglecting their core responsibilities and a greater need for manual tasks, providing more significant opportunities for mistakes.

Employees in any division can be overwhelmed by manual and time-sensitive jobs, which may result in essential details being overlooked. For example, without keeping your eye on the ball, you could end up paying ineffective software, resulting in unnecessary license fees. These non-beneficial or excessive steps are costly and draw away time from tasks that can enable the company to flourish and move forward.

2. Wasting time and resources

Organisations with disparate tools are not just spending money where it doesn't matter; they're also not spending money where it does matter. For example, when your team spends time upgrading and maintaining tools, they could be working on more critical tasks. The extra work of upgrading and preserving is time that teams could dedicate to productivity or innovation.

3. Data inaccuracy and poor decision making

Having disparate tools can make gaining a holistic perspective of your business performance and operations complex. Accurate data creates precise analysis across all departments, and accurate information is crucial to make informed decisions.

According to Gartner's Data Quality Market Survey, businesses lose, on average, $15 million annually to decisions based on inadequate data. You can pull reports across departments with accurate data with complete transparency and accuracy. Accurate data forms the basis of all solid decisions; unreliable or inconsistent information is the basis of risky, impulsive decisions.

Understanding platform requirements

DevOps is a long-term investment. When implemented successfully, it will enable you to operate your business more effectively, drive innovation and creativity and boost team productivity. Therefore, it is essential to fully understand your platform requirements before undertaking your digital transformation.

You should create the requirements with a value stream assessment to understand them. It looks at your lines of business, the processes used to create what you are producing during the software development process (for example, source code, binaries or dependencies) and the time it takes for them to reach a place where they can be used to generate revenue, retain existing customers or produce business efficiencies. Without understanding the current software development value stream, you will experience slow progress in improving software delivery performance.

As a GitLab partner, Adaptavist can help you maximise your GitLab investment and accelerate your journey to implementing a DevOps platform. We provide GitLab services and expertise through our end-to-end DevOps services and solutions, which include DevSecOps assessments, GitLab integration and migration, strategic guidance, assessments, coaching and training.

Contact us to learn more about how our team of experts can help you get started on your DevOps journey.