Why DevOps? How to achieve faster and safer digital product delivery

Why DevOps? How to achieve faster and safer digital product delivery

We at ClearPoint believe in doing what’s right, and one of the ways we do this is by not just recommending DevOps methodologies to our clients, but by living DevOps within our own walls. Across culture, ways of working, and our approach to technology, DevOps is what makes ClearPoint different. It’s also what can help make your business more effective, agile, and productive.  

At its core, the value of DevOps is the ability to achieve faster software delivery without compromising quality, security or business objectives. Your customers already expect great user experiences, and you want to deliver (and exceed) on those expectations. By implementing DevOps practices, businesses can be confident they are delivering on the promise of great technology and great experiences.  

Of course, it’s easy to get excited about faster, safer and better, but when we hear the question, “Why DevOps?”, we really want you to have a strong grasp of the benefits for your customers, your business and your teams. 

 

Benefits for Customers 

There’s one thing we can all agree on: customers expect more from their tech than ever before. If a product isn’t meeting their high standards, not only will they make sure you know about it, they’ll broadcast their discontent to the world. 

Given those high expectations, it’s important to create the conditions to adapt quickly to customer demands. DevOps makes this possible.   

In a DevOps-enabled business, development moves fast. Simply put, DevOps provides the solution to that ever-demanding customer by allowing you to develop, test, and release faster. This means your teams can react at high speed to customer feedbackPlus, the products you release are more reliable, with no interruptions or planned outages to worry about.  

The tools and practices that make DevOps work provide immediate benefits for your customers: just imagine the potential of increased speed and efficiency and fewer errors and bugs. Faster product release cycles will ensure your customers have an even better product in hand. At the same time, you’ll realise continual improvements to your offerings in an impatient marketplace.

 

Benefits for Business 

DevOps is a business essential for staying competitive in a marketplace that moves faster than light. The ability to respond rapidly to customer demands gives companies a strategic and real advantage.  

Enterprises know that in this era of technological innovation, disruption is inevitable. However, DevOpsenabled innovation and scalability are the key factors in fighting disruption.  

DevOps practices set the cornerstone for a truly agile business. In part, this is because continuous delivery (CD) is an integral part of the DevOps methodology. Continuous delivery best practices embrace shorter release cycles, which accelerate the deployment of dependable software to your customers.  

Continuous Delivery ensures you can quickly pivot in response to changes in market or customer demandsWith the power to release new iterations of your product whenever required, you’ll have a competitive edge over businesses whose work is tied to a release schedule.    

The availability of an ever-better, release-ready product also helps businesses meet their objectives and deliver on organisational promises. DevOps automation comes with the ability to scale and re-iterate without increasing team size. Meanwhile, your teams will be happier. Your staff will love working in a DevOps-enabled workplace with increased opportunities for learning, creativity, and collaboration.  

 

Benefits for Teams 

DevOps will fundamentally change the way your teams work, and it’s for the better. From what we’ve seen, it’s often developers and engineers who first introduce the idea of DevOps into their workplaces and try to get management on board. The reason is that improvements to culture and innovation are huge parts of DevOps. For the methodology to be successful, DevOps has to be everyone’s job—everyone shares responsibility in a no-blame culture.  

With DevOps and continuous delivery best practices in place, there is no big deadline to work towards. The practice of continuous short cycles means there is less stress on teams and more opportunities for innovation, experimentation and healthy risk-taking. When everyone is signed onto a DevOps way of working, your teams are able to work autonomously and deliver products without requiring outside input.  

DevOps also leads to great staff retention because your teams are constantly challenged. When talking about DevOps, you’ll often encounter the phrase, “Automate everything.” Automation removes human error and enables more speed, reliability and consistency in your releases. What this means for your teams is more time using their brains and a whole lot less time spent on tedious, manual tasks. They’ll be able to automate out the boring repetitive jobs and focus more on products, experiments, and your customers. 

 

So, what next?  

The benefits of introducing DevOps reach far beyond what we’ve introduced here. Like CD itself, you’ll increasingly discover more benefits as your business further embraces a DevOps methodology.  When you align DevOps practices and the associated enablers such as Cloud infrastructure and elastic modern architecture, there’s no telling how your company can grow.   

DevOps is about maintaining quality, reliability and security for your customers, and your teams gain the ability to work in a cross-functional manner with increased creativity and productivity. DevOps requires sweeping changes to your culture, technology and ways of working. In exchange, your business will become more competitive, responsive and create evermore compelling direct to customer experiences.

  

Not sure where to start? Our team of DevOps experts can help you kick start or improve any part of your DevOps practice. See how we can help with our DevOps Acceleration Package - contact us today.

Empower your digital journey