A new class of technology experts are stepping up to meet critical challenges that are blurring the lines between business strategy and IT operations, according to a recent industry report.
The findings from the Agents of Transformation 2022 by Cisco AppDynamics also revealed the rise in demand to make all products and services digitally available in the Experience Economy amid heightened security threats, increasing complexity, and the accelerated shift to hybrid work and the cloud.
“The bar continues to rise, and over the last year we have seen a redefinition of what it means to be an Agent of Transformation. These leaders are looking to better understand how issues in their respective domains impact the total experience of users and applications, adapting to change with solutions that positively affect the overall business,” said Liz Centoni, EVP, Chief Strategy Officer and GM of Applications, Cisco AppDynamics.
According to the Cisco AppDynamics report, 86 percent of UAE technologists (compared to global average of 74 percent) believe that their experiences in recent years—particularly during the pandemic—have accelerated their careers, and 92 percent of technologists in the Emirates now consider themselves to be business leaders.
However, just 10 percent of technology experts, globally, have reached the elite status of ‘Agents of Transformation’. These individuals represent top-flight leaders who are reimagining and delivering high-value applications and services that create the always-on, secure, and exceptional user experiences now demanded by end users and customers.
Respondents cite a fundamental change in the role of technologists, including the skills and resources required to operate effectively and proficiently. At the same time, they say they now contend with soaring complexity and volumes of data from across the technology stack and must integrate a massively expanding set of cloud-native services with existing on-premises systems and tools.
The study also highlighted that 93 percent of UAE technologists believe that what it means to be a technologist has changed. It noted that 92 percent of UAE technologists say the skills and qualities that define an Agent of Transformation have evolved.
However, 72 percent of UAE technologists indicate that it is now more difficult to be an Agent of Transformation with one in five respondents saying that their organisation remains stuck in reactive, “fire-fighting mode”.
“The new Agents of Transformation recognise a need to reimagine applications not just in response to post-pandemic challenges, but also, to create flawless, reliable digital experiences that address some of the world’s greatest problems—from meeting critical human needs to giving people the skills and resources to succeed in the digital economy,” said Centoni.
While acknowledging the far-reaching consequences of this change, respondents in the Cisco AppDynamics report note that they need help navigating the technical and operational ambiguities of digital transformation. Specifically, they are looking for unified visibility into their IT environments to better manage and optimise application availability and performance. This requires focusing investments on application security, observability over cloud-native applications and infrastructure, and linking IT performance to business decision-making.
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The report also underscored that 72 percent of UAE technologists believe it will be important to invest in application security over the next 12 months to meet customer and employee needs.
Looking ahead, the study revealed that 75 percent of technology professionals in the Emirates think their organisation will need to invest in observing cloud-native applications and infrastructure. Additionally, 91 percent of UAE technologists say that the need to maintain the performance of business applications is now more important than ever.
Furthermore, 91 percent of UAE technologists state that full stack observability is core to sustainable transformation and innovation in their organisation.
