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SA enterprises seek agility through DevOps and automation


Johannesburg, 15 Sep 2020

South African companies are looking to achieve faster time to market and more business resilience, as competition picks up and the COVID-19 pandemic highlights the importance of being able to pivot and adapt to change.

This is according to Jose De Nobrega, Sales Director, Software at iOCO, a Platinum Sponsor of the Micro Focus Realize 2020 forum.

“The pandemic highlighted how quickly the business world can change, and a lot of companies realised that you can’t afford to stay behind and say you’ll do it later. You have to join the agile economy or be left behind,” he says.

“The world is moving faster, economies are being challenged; and this is driving an increase in DevOps and automation.”

De Nobrega says the trend to embrace DevOps and automation was becoming apparent even before the pandemic struck, however: “Over the 18 months, we have started seeing enterprises moving beyond talk and putting money into DevOps projects. We’re seeing a lot more looking for consulting services and integrated toolsets that can deliver on the benefits they are expecting – this is typically about getting things out faster and more often, and at same time focusing on quality.”

Doing so can be complex, he notes. “You need the right tools, and you have to look at the technology as an integrated solution to eliminate a lot of the integration work. But it’s about more than the technology – it’s also about changing the way the company itself works. Processes must be aligned and changed, and people have to move out of silos and work more closely together.”

Automation is also picking up in South Africa, he says. “More customers are looking to automate manual processes and to see where they can use AI and machine learning. There has been a significant increase in the focus on automation, and the pandemic drove even more of a leap. The drivers here are also a need to be agile, faster to market and more able to adapt quickly to changing environments.”

While the move to DevOps and automation is being led by large enterprises in the financial and telco space, De Nobrega notes that smaller and midsize companies need to make the move too, while startups have the advantage that they were created to work in an automated, agile way. “This gives them advantages – for example, look at the new digital banks and how fast they are growing. They were created to be more agile and technology based, which means they already automate as much as possible,” he says.

To stay abreast of these changes, De Nobrega says a commitment to agile, DevOps and automation has to start at senior executive level. “Organisations should also get advice from consultants and companies who’ve experienced in these fields, and who can partner with them to develop and roll out the strategy, processes and technologies that are aligned with agile and DevOps. It helps a lot to look for the quick and easy wins to show your people the benefits and get their buy in,” he says.

iOCO is a platinum sponsor of the Micro Focus Realize 2020 forum, to be held online from 15 – 17 September. During the event, Charl Behrens, security consultant at iOCO, will speak on SDLC security testing SAST related to Automation tools CI pipelines, and Chris Visage, ITOM Product Manager at iOCO, will participate in a panel discussion entitled Business Resilience: How have you used the various ITOM solutions to address this need?  

For more information, and to attend this event, go to https://v2.itweb.co.za/event/micro-focus/realize-2020/

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