Neglecting their aging IT infrastructure is costing Indian businesses big time, a new study has found. The median cost of an IT outage among Indian companies stands at around $62.79 million, or roughly Rs 523 crore a year.
Do note that this isn’t an average figure but a median figure, which means that a few firms are paying considerably more, perhaps even thousands of crore.
New Relic, the comprehensive observability platform designed for engineers, has recently released its 2023 Observability Forecast report. This report delves into the ever-evolving landscape of observability, its profound influence on the daily lives of technical experts, and its significant impact on businesses’ financial performance.
In this year’s edition, the survey encompassed the insights of 1,700 technology professionals spanning 15 different countries. Its primary goal was to understand the current state of observability comprehensively, identify areas experiencing the most and most minor growth, and pinpoint the external factors shaping expenditure and adoption trends.
Remarkably, this marks the third annual iteration of the study, making it not only the largest but also the most extensive of its kind. Notably, the sole report openly shares its unprocessed data with the public.
The findings of this report uncover a staggering financial toll caused by IT outages in India. Respondents from the country reported a median annual outage cost averaging an astonishing US$62.79 million.
Interestingly, 74 percent of these respondents indicated that implementing observability solutions positively impacted the resolution time for these outages. In a striking revelation, it was noted that a substantial majority of C-suite executives in India, including 77 percent of those with a strong technical focus and 74 percent of their less technically oriented counterparts, were fervent proponents of observability.
The research also highlighted a significant challenge faced by organizations in India – tool sprawl. They stood out as the country employing the highest number of tools by a considerable margin, with nearly 72 percent using more than ten tools for observation. Strikingly, none of the Indian respondents reported relying on a single platform exclusively for comment.
However, 51 percent expressed a preference for a unified, consolidated platform. Excessive reliance on multiple monitoring tools emerged as the most formidable obstacle to achieving complete full-stack observability. Additionally, 33 percent of Indian organizations disclosed plans to streamline their toolset to optimize the value derived from their observability investments in the coming year.
Peter Marelas, Chief Architect for the Asia-Pacific Japan (APJ) region at New Relic, commented on these findings, stating, “Tool sprawl and data silos are significantly hampering the ability of Indian organizations to mitigate downtime and its associated costs.”
He added, “The Observability Forecast highlights that 43 percent of Indian businesses have isolated telemetry data, resulting in blind spots when monitoring and maintaining system health. Embracing full-stack observability can solve some of the most pressing challenges confronting Indian organizations today.”
