Developer Platforms: Key Findings from a Forrester Snapshot
With tough times hitting the tech industry, you might wonder how platform engineering fits into a winning business strategy.
According to a recent Forrester Opportunity Snapshot commissioned by Humanitec, investing in an internal developer platform (IDP) can be the key to better business performance. IDPs improve developer experience (DevEx) and developer productivity, which in turn helps shorten time to market (TTM), improves software supply chain best practices and drives revenue growth. Here’s what you should know.
Developer Productivity Drives Business Success
When making the case for an IDP to the business, you need to frame your argument around the priorities the business cares about. For example, many organizations recognize that keeping pace with digital transformation is critical to survival.
In this case, an IDP can significantly improve DevEx and productivity to help shorten innovation cycles and drive the success of digital initiatives. In fact, according to the Snapshot, 87% of DevOps leaders are increasing developer productivity as their top priority for the next 12 months. Eighty-five percent say better meeting business demand is their focus, and 85% are shortening release cycle times to help ensure continuous transformation.
But boosting developer productivity is easier said than done. DevOps leaders report a variety of significant obstacles, including pandemic-related issues with onboarding, training and mentoring (41%), and a lack of DevOps practices (25%). Responses also highlighted ways that operations can create challenges for digital transformation, including the insufficient integration of security practices into the development process (23%) and too many manual and/or ticket-based processes (23%).
Platforms Are Key to Improving DevEx
IDPs are becoming a popular solution to poor DevEx, and for good reason. According to the Snapshot, 43% of DevOps leaders agree that an IDP enables true developer self-service. Developer self-service helps alleviate one of the biggest sources of inefficiency caused by increasingly complex cloud architectures: over-reliance on Ops.
But what kind of effect does better DevEx have on your business’s bottom line?
Elevate DevEx and Shorten Time to Market
By removing friction and bottlenecks from the software delivery process, an IDP not only improves DevEx, it enables development teams to work more efficiently to reduce TTM and increase revenue. Seventy-four percent of DevOps leaders say that improving DevEx drives better developer productivity, 77% say that it can shorten time to market, and a whopping 85% report a positive impact on revenue growth. Better DevEx can also help organizations better meet customer demand. Seventy-five percent of respondents say they can better attract and retain customers, and 82% report increased customer satisfaction. Lastly, 81% say that investing in DevEx has a positive impact on developer recruitment and retention.
In short, platform engineering lives up to the hype. Not only can IDPs improve DevEx, but they also have measurable benefits for the businesses that invest in them: Shorter TTM, better customer retention and revenue growth. Start your journey to better business performance and download the full snapshot here.
